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THE LETTERS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT

VOLUME V

The Big Stick

1905 — 1907

THE LETTERS OF

Theodore Roosevelt

SELECTED AND EDITED BY

ELTING E. MORISON

JOHN M. BLUM

Associate Edtto)

ALFRED D CHANDLER, JR.
Assistant Editor

SYLVIA RICE

Copy Edito 7

Harvard University Press

Cambridge , Massachusetts

1952

Distributed in Great Britain by
Geoffrey Cumberlege , Oxford
University Press, London

1 hese two volumes, since they contain letters written, for the most
part, in the second administration of Theodore Roosevelt, have a kind of
independent unity. For this reason they may be used by historians and
others who have had no occasion to consult the preceding books m this
series. A word or two about methods of selection and editorial procedure,
lifted in large part from the introduction to the first volume, may therefore
not be out of place here.

As for questions of editorial purpose and procedure. The intent behind
the venture is to make easily accessible all the available letters of Theodore
Roosevelt that seem necessary to reveal, in so far as letters can, his thought
and action in all the major and many of the minor undertakings of his public
and private life. The letters have been selected with this intent in mind and
without regard to the question of previous publication, they have been ar-
ranged in chronological order, and they have been printed in their entirety.
The primary source of material has been the Theodore Roosevelt Collection
m the Library of Congress. Of the 100,000, to give approximate figures, let-
ters m this collection perhaps ninety per cent are exact copies of dictated
letters This primary source has been supplemented by material drawn from
over 150 letter collections m this country and abroad. Many of the letters
discovered m these collections, over four thousand in all, are simply the
typed originals of carbon or letter-press copies now in the Roosevelt Collec-
tion. A great many such letters, of which two precisely similar versions exist
in different places, are printed in these volumes. They are cited, for purposes
of convenience, to the Roosevelt Manuscripts. Only when no copy of a
letter can be found m the Roosevelt Collection, is citation made to the collec-
tion where the original lies

There are about 1500 letters on the pages that follow; they have been
selected from an available supply, for the four years in question, of about
20,000 This reduction has been achieved in the following way. All trivia, of
which there are many, and most duplicating material, of which there is more,
have been, save in rare instances, cut away. In many fields of continuing but
secondary interest for Roosevelt — literature, exploration, history, or the
hunt — only suggestive examples, save again m rare instances, have been in-

eluded. In the field of primary interest, politics, other criteria have governed.
For all the significant events — like the legislative history of the Hepburn Act

— and for all suggestive minor episodes — like the Goldfield labor crisis —
all letters not absolutely repetitive are included. With issues that continue

— like the nomination and election of Taft — letters indicating development
or shift in general policy have been taken, but, save in unusual circumstances,
letters that simply reiterate previously prepared positions are ordinarily
avoided The application of policy is demonstrated by letters dealing with
specific case histories that have been chosen either as representative of many,
as in the administration of the Panama Canal, or as possessing unusual intrinsic
interest, as in the case of the intervention in Cuba.

The letters thus selected have been reproduced in accordance with the
following procedures* Handwritten letters, designated as such by the symbol
“°” attached to the cited manuscript collection, are printed as written with-
out further indication of Roosevelt’s frequent and startling departures from
the norm of accepted usage in spelling. The zero symbol, designed originally
to fit as gracefully as possible into a necessarily cluttered page, is perhaps too
unobtrusive; experience with the first two volumes has demonstrated that it
has eluded the eyes of at least some readers. Therefore, a word of caution, as
well as of self-defense. When surprising aberrations of spelling appear in the
letter text, look first for the symbol of the superior zero before assuming
that the fault lies in ourselves and not in our star. For the rest, typed letters
are printed exactly as written, save that obvious spelling errors have been
corrected in accordance with the requirements of Webster's Collegiate Dic-
tionary and Webster's Geographical Dictionary . Letters reprinted from
books, newspapers and periodicals are printed, m spite of occasional quite
obvious or surprising printer’s errors, precisely as originally published.

# * #

Since the preface to the second two volumes was written several changes
in the personnel of the group preparing this series have taken place In May
1951 Hope Williams Wigglesworth left shortly after her marriage. She had
been a member of the editorial staff for three years and an assistant editor for
one year. Constance Cone, Eleanor Pearre, and Ann Wierum joined the staff
in September 1951. Thomas Little succeeded Nora Cordingley as the cus-
todian of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection in the Harvard College Library
in May 1951. Arthur John, Samuel Hays, and Glenn Weaver have, in the
past year, searched various manuscript collections for Roosevelt letters. The
index for these two volumes was prepared by Mary Handlin

Permission obtained from the following publishers to quote from the
indicated books is most gratefully acknowledged: Atlantic Monthly Press,
Boston, for Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higgmson , 1921;
Dodd, Mead and Co , New York, for Philip C. Jessup, Ehhu Root , 1938;
E. P. Dutton and Co., New York, for Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of

Life and Labor, An Autobiography , 1925; Ginn and Co., Boston, for William
Z. Ripley, Trusts, Pools and Corporations, revised edition, 1916; Harcourt,
Brace and Co., New York, for Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, A
Biography, 1931, and Joseph Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of
Lincoln Steffens, 1931, Harper and Bros., New York, for Hermann Hage-
dorn, Leonard Wood, A Biography, 1931, and Allan Nevins, Henry White,
Thirty Years of American Diplomacy, 1930; Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston,
for Claude G. Bowers, Beveridge and the Progressive Era, 1932, Stephen
Gwynn, The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spnng Rice, 1929, Irwin
Hood Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House, 1934, Thomas Babing-
ton Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays, 1900, Elting E. Morison, Ad-
miral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 1942, and William Roscoe
Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay, 1915, The Johns Hopkins Press,
Baltimore, for Enc F. Goldman, Charles J. Bonaparte, 1943; Longmans,
Green and Co., New York, for William Z. Ripley, Railroads, Finance and
Organization, 1927, and Railroads, Rates and Regulation, 1920; The Macmillan
Co., New York, for Herbert George Wells, Experiment m Autobiography,
1934, and William Allen White, The Autobiography of William Allen
White, 1946; The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, Colum-
bus, Ohio, for Everett Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker, An Uncompromising
Republican, 1948, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, for
Angie Debo, And Still the Waters Run, 1940, and Roy M. Robbins, Our
Landed Heritage, 1942, Rinehart and Co., New York, for Henry F. Pringle,
The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, A Biography, 1939, Charles
Scribner’s Sons, New York, for Dictionary of American Biography, Allan
Nevins, John D. Rockefeller, 1940, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, Na-
tional Edition, 1926, Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roose-
velt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918, 1925, and Mark Sullivan, Our
Times : The United States, 1900-1924, 1930, Stanford University Press, Stan-
ford, California, for Thomas A. Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-
American Crises, 1934; The John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia, for William
Jennings Bryan, The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan, 1925. Thanks are
also given to Senator Robert A. Taft for permission to quote from letters
written by his father, William Howard Taft.

Contents

VOLUME FIVE

Introduction

xiii

A Square Deal for Europe and Asia

September 1905-November 1905

"It Has Been a Great Session ”

November 19 05- July 1906

" The Duty of a Leader Is to Lead ”

July 1906-November 1906

333

Resources and Commitments

November 1906-October 1907

495

"To Restore Confidence ”

October 1907- December 1907

VOLUME SIX

821

"To Restore Confidence,” continued

December 190 7- January 1908

865

"Nominated Solely on My Assurances”

January 1908-June 1908

901

"Taft Will Carry on the Work”

June 1908-November 1908

1093

1333

The Final Legacies
November 1908- March 1909

APPENDIX

Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal

1547

Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act

1558

III

Special Message, January 31, 1908

1572

Chronology

1592

INDEX

1629

Illustrations and Charts

(Where no source is indicated, the illustrations are from the
Theodore Roosevelt Collection m the Harvard College Library.)

VOLUME FIVE

With Skip at Great Divide, Colorado, 1905. Photograph by

Dr. Alexander Lambert 96

Hunting Trip m Colorado, 1905. Photograph by Underwood and

Underwood 97

At Tuskegee with Booker T Washington, 1905. Photograph by

American Press 128

With the Mayor of Texlme, Texas, 1905 Photograph by Underwood

and Underwood 128

Spelling Reform Cartoon by Bart 129

Paul Morton 448

William Crawford Gorgas 448

George Washington Goethals 448

Charles Evans Hughes. Photograph by Underwood and Underwood 448

Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit. Photograph by Paul Thompson 449

On a Train Platform at Little Rock, with J. C Greenway, Surgeon
General Rixey, William Loeb, Col. L. O. Brown, and J. A.
Mcllhenny, October 1905. Photograph by Underwood and Un-
derwood 449

Dedication of the New State Capitol at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,

October 1906. Photograph by Underwood and Underwood 480

Visit to Panama, November 1906 Photograph by Underwood and

Underwood 48 1

VOLUME SIX

The Art Critic. Cartoon by Hassman, for Puck, / $oy 896

Roosevelt and Evans, 1907. Photograph by Underwood and Under-
wood 897

The Cruise Around the World, 1907. Photograph by Underwood and

Underwood 897

Teddy in Timberland. Cartoon by Macauley, May 26, 1907 928

Old Dr. Roosevelt. Cartoon by J. S. Pughe, for Puck, June 1 907 929

The Family: Ethel, Kermit, Quentin, Mrs. Roosevelt, Ted, Roosevelt,
Archie, Alice, Nicholas Longworth. Copyright 1908 by Harris
and Ewing 1312

“You go home and stay there!” Cartoon by Danaher, November 21,

1907 1313

“It won’t fly.” Cartoon by Gilbert for Rocky Mountain News, Denver,

June 1908 1313

The Teddyfication of the White House. Cartoon by Albert Levering,

for Puck, February 1909 1 345

Chart 1. The First Isthmian Canal Commission, May 1904 — April

1905 1 555

Chart 2. The Second Commission, April 1905 — November 1906 1556

Chart 3. The Second Commission as Reorganized, November 17, 1906 1557

xii

Introduction

1 n one of his stories Sherwood Anderson sends young George Wil-
lard out, on the night after the annual fair, to sit in the grandstand at the
Winesburg fairground. The sounds of the bright day and living people have
been cut off. No hoof beats, no laughter, no notes of brass, no cheers, and no
idle banter. A place that has itched and squirmed and finally overflowed
with the gaiety of life lies dark and empty. In such a time, thinks George
Willard, there is something memorable, a sensation never to be forgotten;
one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes, while one shudders
at the thought of the meaninglessness of life.

There are occasions in history that provoke the same sensation. Certain
countries at certain times have, like Winesburg fairground, fairly burst with
radiant, irresponsible life. England in the Restoration, Bavaria during the
more sober moments of the Wittelsbachs, and the France that was so skill-
fully lighted by those famous gas fixtures of the Second Empire; these were
marked by a special sense of movement, a kind of noisy jubilance. Anyone
enticed to a closer examination by this noise and motion may be disconcerted
to find how little beside remains. Few useful insights, few moving attitudes,
few fruitful concepts come down to us in the baggage train of history from
these manic ages. It appears that when the noise died away, meaning died
with it

America has had such times — suitably modified in tone and hue to meet
American conditions. The era of good feeling comes to mind and so do the
nineteen-twenties. Quite possibly on judgment day, or even before, the first
ten years of this century will be placed m the same category — a time of
sound and movement signifying little. If this happens, it will be inevitable
that the principal figure of the time will be cast into oblivion along with his
period.

There are signs that this judgment is already in the making. Not long ago
one critic announced that the stature of Theodore Roosevelt was diminishing
year by year, and very recently an observer concluded that it would not be
surprising if Roosevelt were sent to lie in the dark with Franklin Pierce and
Millard Fillmore. This may be unnecessarily rude, but it certainly is sugges-
tive. And there is supporting evidence for these views. It is true, for instance,

that the Roosevelt administration brought to American politics a good many
of the more stimulating features of the midway of a county fair. It is true
also that interest in these features will not outlive the memories of those who
actually observed or participated in the events of the first decade of this
century. And it is also true that the Roosevelt administration did not con-
tribute any of the massive formulations, either of intellect or spirit, that
appear in the national heritage. We retain in our consciousness from these
years no great releasing statement about the freedom and equality of all men,
no strain of unearthly music, as from Gettysburg; no noble proposition to
bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
A great many things happened from 1901 to 1909, but after forty years not
much, at first glance, seems to be left. An attempt to discover some continu-
ing meaning in what is left may appropriately begin with some comment on
the character and personality of the principal figure in this period

The surface manifestations of the President have long been obvious, and
have been duly noted down — the energy, the doctrinaire morality, the
curiosity, the zeal to organize and execute, the irresistible high spirits. What
has been perhaps less obvious, and certainly less noticed, is that this spirited
attack on life rested on no very cheerful or reassuring notions about the
meaning of life itself.

There was, in many members of the generation to which Roosevelt be-
longed, a buoyant confidence in progress, a pervasive feeling that through
the affairs of men there ran one great increasing purpose. This attitude
Roosevelt did not share. For him there were only two reliable constants in hu-
man life — birth and death, the great antitheses that were embraced in what
he called “the universal law of life.” It was the part not so much of bravery
as of simple common sense to accept these terminal points without morbidity
and without illusion. For individuals and for nations there was a beginning
and an end. What lay between was life — a series of unstable situations with-
out plan or purpose superior to the intent of man himself. And this intent
could be imposed only by human effort — by action, by struggle, and, if
need be, by strife For, as he wrote one of his sons, in a planless universe
“the strife ‘is well-nigh unceasing and breathing spots are few.” In other
words, life is a battleground for campaigns determined by man himself
in which the fit survive and only those, as he said, who are prepared to die
are fit to live.

Where this sense of existence as struggle within an unplanned and un-
stable universe came from is, in this place, incidental. That there was chaos
in life he had, from personal experience, discovered early. His mother and
young wife died on the same day when he was twenty-four years old and
when he was forty-two he became President of the United States by act of
a madman. No doubt also he found confirmation for his view in his patient
and intimate observation of nature on western plains, southern bayous, and
within the jungle. And anyone in his generation who took the trouble to read

xiv

the Darwinian text unedited and unamended could find supporting evidence
there.

It is not so much to the point to ascertain when or how Roosevelt came
by this view of life as it may be to try to discover how, since he held it, he
decided to deal with the experiences his own life presented. First he deter-
mined to accept the conditions presented by any particular occasion without,
as he used to say, repining. “It is a dreadful thing,” he wrote his closest friend
in September 1901, “to come into the Presidency this way, but it would be
a far worse thing to be morbid about it. Here is the task, and I have got to
do it to the best of my ability; and that is all there is about it.”

Sometimes of course there was a little more about it — memories and
accumulated meanings that could not be set aside. Then one dismissed, not
the fact which could not be disregarded, but the implications. Tell her, he
wrote the mother of a niece whose fiance had died, to “treat the past as past,
the event as finished and out of her life. To dwell on it, ... . would be both
weak and morbid .... let her never speak one word of the matter, hence-
forth, to you or anyone else. Let her try not to think of it; this she cannot
wholly avoid. But she can wholly avoid speaking of it.” It was a counsel he
himself had kept when he wrote the letter for a quarter of a century.

The second way to deal with this unstable universe was to struggle —
that is, ordinarily, to work. “In the end,” he wrote to Frederic Coudert in
1901, “the man who works dies as surely as the man who idles.” This was
simply the umversal law of life, but the man who worked might leave some-
thing behind and he would certainly have found satisfaction in the doing.
At the same time he told Coudert, “The older I grow the more I feel that
.... the chief pleasure really worth having for any man is the doing well
of some work that ought to be done; and I care less and less, as time goes on,
what particular form this work may take.” Over and over again — in public
and in private — he stated his position. “Work, . . . .” he assured the good
people of Topeka m 1903, “is absolutely necessary; .... no man can be said
to live in the true sense of the word, if he does not work.” And, as he was
leaving office, he confided to his successor that his only religious feeling lay
m the belief m salvation by works.

Some works, it will be recalled, there were that “ought to be done.” How,
m a world without one increasing purpose, did one decide what works they
were ? One had his own morality, if the world did not — an artificial frame-
work that could impose a kind of personal order upon a scheme of things
essentially disorderly. It may not have been quite as artificial as this suggests.
“Right is right,” Roosevelt once wrote Lodge, “and wrong is wrong, and it
is a sign of weakness and not of generosity to confuse them.” The moral
structure was rigid, it gave little opportunity for the play of subtlety or
sophistication, but it was a firm base from which to operate amid the uncer-
tainties.

Taken all together, these attitudes, shorn as they are of any general philo-

sophic interpretation of the meaning of life, present an operational approach
to existence. A man after a careful assessment and a determined acceptance
of what he takes to be the “real situation” sets out, without morbidity or un-
substantial vision, but with certain rules of conduct to make life work. At
some length this private view of the universe has been considered because
Roosevelt carried much of it over quite consciously into his conduct of
public affairs. It always seemed obvious to him that “what is true of the
individual is also true of the nation.”

He began, in thinking about society, with an acceptance of its unstable
nature. Like a political party, which he once informed an audience was like
a sailing vessel, society was a bundle of incompatibles in which the separate
elements were always struggling for supremacy and recognition. He then
went on to compare the task of politics, that is social organization, with the
task confronting the naval architect who must establish successful compro-
mises between contending requirements — speed, strength, cargo capacity —
to obtain the kind of ship desired As with ship design so with social archi-
tecture, the problem was to reconcile “m so far as may be the opposing ele-
ments in society through the striking of successful compromises.”

If the compromises were not obtained, the way was left open for the free
play of uncontrolled energies. Throughout the letters published in these
volumes there is discernible a brooding dread of revolutionary chaos. To
Lyman Abbott, as to many others, Roosevelt once disclosed what he called
his “horror of anarchy, disorder, and .... wanton bloodshed.” The way to
prevent these destructive energies from coming into play was to find accept-
able working agreements between the dissident elements that make up society.

How, as a practical matter, does one set about this task in politics^ 5 At the
beginning it is necessary to recognize the real situation, to assess, in so far
as possible without memories or prejudices morbidly brought down from the
past or hopes too clearly prescribed for the future, the nature of the society
one seeks to administer.

It is interesting to discover, in view of his background, training, and
inclinations, how early Roosevelt decided that he lived m a world in which
“big business had come to stay ” Disliking and distrusting as he did the
corporation executive and the financier, he was yet prepared to proclaim that
America was an industrial society. It has been quoted before but it may be
repeated that he asked his countrymen to look ahead and think about “the
right kind of a civilization as that which we intend to develop from these
wonderful new conditions of vast industrial growth.” Of course he was not
alone in this perception. But there were few in positions of authority at the
end of the nineteenth century who recognized so clearly the extent to which
mechanical power had transformed our life and customs. There were fewer
still who were prepared to admit publicly or privately either the need for, or
the possibility of, developing a civilization designed at once to exploit and
to control the great thrusts of industrial energy.

Then there was the bundle of incompatibles contending for supremacy

xvi

in this society. Down through the years from 1890 to 1918, at fairgrounds,
in hotel ballrooms, over cornerstones, and from railroad sidings, Roosevelt
defined the great antitheses in American life. There were the rich and the
poor, the brains and the hands, the farmer and the machinist, the corporation
and the private citizen, the company and the union. "

How then to strike compromises between these opposing elements? For
Roosevelt this was to be accomplished by the application of the Square Deal.
The Square Deal was “justice, whether the man accused of guilt has behind
him the wealthiest corporations, .... or the most influential labor organiza-
tions.” The Square Deal, in another effort at definition, was designed to
secure “through governmental agencies an equal opportunity for each man
to show the stuff that is in him,” to give him “as nearly as may be a fair
chance to do what his powers permit him to do; always providing he does
not wrong his neighbor.”

The significant words in the above paragraph may be “through govern-
mental agencies.” Roosevelt was clear about what he meant by this. “Good
legislation,” he once wrote, “does not secure good government, which can
come only through a good administration.” To Trevelyan in 1908 he was
even more forthright. “I believe,” he said, “in a strong executive; I believe in
power. . . .” Justice between man and man, group and group, and the vari-
ous incompatibles was to be achieved by the authority of a strong executive
who apparently knew what justice was.

The limitations in this position — considered as a political philosophy —
are disastrously apparent. It has no decent intellectual underpinning; in vain
one scrutinizes the scheme to find a logically constructed system of ideas.
There is no organized statement of self-evident truths about man and his
requirements to provide a direction or a basis for judgment in political action.
At anticipated worst this is an acceptance of things as they are; at improbable
best this may be only a willingness to reduce inequities to a bearable point so
that society may hold together while it edges along the lines of least resistance
into the future.

Most damaging perhaps is that this operational approach depends ulti-
mately upon no safer source of information than the intuition. The judgment
about the nature of society, the description of the conflicts within it, and
the selection of methods and times to resolve these conflicts — all these are
the products of personal intuition. So also is the determination of what is
justice. The Square Deal rests upon no more substantial ground than the
intuitive feelings of the executive; a broker who thinks of justice as a satis-
factory working agreement. No doubt the broker is honest and decent — he
has said that good is good and bad is bad and it is weakness to confuse them —
but he has set the bounds of honor and decency within the limits of what he
himself intuitively feels is the possible. And he has, finally, determined that
the acceptance of his interpretation of the possible must rest less upon per-
suasion or law than upon his own authority.

In the face of these limitations, it is necessary to proceed with some

XVII

caution in attempting to find out what came of it all. From the crowded
ledger of the Roosevelt years, three things may be extracted for further con-
sideration. First, some surprisingly accurate intuitive judgments on matters
both great and small. The hips that Lincoln Steffens said that Roosevelt
thought with turned out to be quite sensitive instruments. As John Hay said,
“he raises intelligence to the quick flash of intuition.” Feeling, as he did, that
the problems of the time were produced by the push of unorganized indus-
trial energy, Roosevelt set about first to assist where he could in the passage
of specific laws to conserve and develop our resources, to regulate common
carriers, to dissolve monolithic corporate structures, in short to bring the
industrial energy within an organized control. Anyone who takes the trouble
to read the letters in these volumes will discover how carefully Roosevelt
proceeded in his effort to obtain laws designed at once to satisfy the preju-
dices of Congress, to protect the rights of the public, and to fulfill the legiti-
mate requirements of industry. And in these letters may also be discovered
how he sought to strengthen old and to create, where necessary, new agencies
through which the laws might be administered with speed and decision.

At the same time in external affairs, he discerned that the future of the
country lay within the whole world and not in some insulated corner. He
therefore, without nostalgic allegiance to a provincial past or self-deceiving
and sentimental pretentions that this was the white man’s burden, set about —
in so far as he could — to equip the country for international maturity. The
great island administrations of his Presidency were honest, sound, and with-
out imperial illusion m seeking to encourage wherever possible the active par-
ticipation of the island populations in government. In the Orient, in South
America, in Europe he acted with decision and with flair to maintain the
position or to express the interest of his country in world affairs. In further
support of position and interest he sought by reason, political maneuver, and
indeed by guile to build a naval force sufficient to continue our policies by
other means, should conference and negotiation fail.

To some observers this shrill concern with the length of the battle line
suggested that Roosevelt sought to obtain his ends exclusively by reeking
tube and iron shard. There is no doubt that he respected, perhaps unduly,
military power, but he argued, in season and out, that our real strength in
foreign affairs derived from a combination of physical, intellectual, and moral
energy — that is from our total national character.

No doubt in the field of international relations as elsewhere, the claims
were greater than the substance, no doubt, as at Portsmouth or in the cruise
of the Great White Fleet, the advertising exceeded the product. No doubt,
too, in 1909 the fact that this country had begun to participate in world
affairs was clearer than why it was participating. Few indeed could precisely
state just what point of view we were to uphold in the family of nations.
For Roosevelt, this was unimportant. When, in foreign affairs as in domestic,
the critical situation arose — as in Cuba, Algeciras, and Korea — there would

xviii

be time enough to devise, within our scheme of moral and practical considera-
tions, a specific solution to fit the particular occasion.

The forty years since he left office have not really demonstrated the un-
wisdom of these views. They have, on the other hand, disclosed a structural
fault in the conceit that America can be an isolatable quantity in the modem
world. They have also revealed very perceptible limitations in more doc-
trinaire, if more elaborate, approaches to the conduct of our foreign affairs.
These forty-odd years have also uncovered no weakness m Roosevelt’s idea
that, m the present state of civilization, foreign policy is sustained by a force
in being as well as by good intentions. “No friendliness with other nations,
no good will for them or by them, can take the place of national self-
reliance.” As he warned his last Congress. “Fit to hold our own against the
strong nations of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the
earth. Unprepared, and therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and helpless to
defend ourselves, protect others, or preserve peace.” He said this dreadful
platitude a hundred different times in a hundred different ways. He further
did what he could to obtain a self-reliant nation that would act upon it.

In reaching decisions about what he took to be wise and possible for the
country both at home and abroad Roosevelt relied primarily upon his own
intuitive judgments, but he took great pains to base these judgments upon
information derived from other sources, notably from those equipped with
special knowledge. He sought to obtain, on any given problem, the full spec-
trum of expert opinion before making up his mind. This is certainly in char-
acter. The executive who has no great faith in a body of principled theory
as a guide to action must find assistance somewhere and where, more natu-
rally, than in the minds of well-informed men.

A second thing to be extracted from the Roosevelt administration is the
feeling for the single man — that man who was to be given as nearly as may
be a fair chance to show the stuff that was in him. Roosevelt’s instinct for
the particular situation, his regard for the intuitive perception, his reliance
upon the private scheme of morality all prepared him to look for the in-
dividual. He cut down through the dreary classifications of society — the
farm vote or the white-collar class — to reach the single man; to snatch the
individual from the ranks of cowboys, poets, hunters, mechanics, dukes, bird
watchers, politicians, fishermen, publishers, emperors, engineers, wives, and
small boys. With individuals from all these ranks and callings Roosevelt set
up a direct two-way communication and relationship based on the stuff that
was in both him and them. It was not good fellowship; he was in fact a poor
good fellow. It was instinctive feeling that only the man himself counts.
“While sometimes it is necessary,” he wrote in 1900, “from both a legislative
and social standpoint, to consider men as a class, yet in the long run our
safety lies in recognizing the individual’s worth or lack of worth as the chief
basis of action, and in shaping our whole conduct, and especially our political
conduct, accordingly.” It is perhaps strange politics to propose that there are

xix

actually unworthy individuals — but it does help to recover for each in-
dividual a sense of responsibility for his own worth. How else to measure the
stuff that is in you^

This feeling for the individual as opposed to the type springs from a
view of nature that assumes that in the conduct of his own affairs man is the
measure of all things. It proposes that he must be mindful of himself. This
is a moving view of life that has profoundly influenced western culture. To-
day, in an age that thinks in larger increments — the little people, one third
of a nation — this vivid awareness of the individual has a refreshing, and may
have a therapeutic, meaning.

Third and last to be considered from these years is an attitude toward
power. The problem posed for man by power and its relation to character
and salvation has an ancient, unhappy history. Not Job, nor Machiavelli, not
Caesar, nor Dostoevski has helped us much here save in description of the
problem. Nor has experience. Only fifteen years ago a generation almost died
with the words of Lord Acton on its lips. When every schoolboy knew that
power corrupted, it was the fashion to suppose that the way to achieve virtue
was to suspect all ends supported by powerful means.

It is idle to pretend that this question of authority is not one of man’s
great perplexities, just as it is idle to pretend that there is not real substance
m the Actoman pronouncement. In the past, as it will happen in the future,
corrupting influences have burst through the pales and forts of law and moral-
ity that have been thrown up around the seats of power. Yet stable social
organization must still depend upon applications of authority. Theodore
Roosevelt accepted this condition of affairs; he believed, he said, in power.
Perhaps he believed too much in power, but he was not unaware of its under-
mining influences. He understood how some able men, like Thomas Collier
Platt, were seduced by irresistible desires for control and he knew how other
able men, like John Hay, disturbed by the implications of power, thwarted
their own energies. In three ways, therefore, he sought to limit the corrupt-
ing influence of authority. He looked first to the law — the firmament of
ancient custom and current opinion within which the administrator must
work. But, though he spoke with respect of the law as a support for char-
acter, his respect was qualified. Laws were attempts at uniform solutions,
while the specific conflicts in society — varying always m form and intensity
— were sometimes better dealt with by executive action unhampered by the
generalities of law. So he looked further for other safeguards. He found one
m the limiting factor of personal morality, of character, the control of power
by the control of self.

There is a tiny but suggestive episode that bears on this point. Two men
were put in prison for passing Confederate money. One appealed and was
released from prison by the Supreme Court on the grounds that Confederate
money was not counterfeit. Attorney General Knox sent Roosevelt a formal
order to release the other on the ground that he could not be held in prison

for what had been adjudged to be no crime. Roosevelt, convinced that the
man was morally a criminal, refused — “As for saying that I could not keep
him m, why, he was in, and that was all there was about it.” No doubt, he
concluded, Knox had the best of the argument as regards the law but he had
“the final say-so as to the facts and the man stayed in for nearly a year
longer.”

Roosevelt was amused; the incident was indeed amusing. But the execu-
tive had set the claims of his private system of morality against the law of the
land and he had determined, at his own desire, the final say-so on what was
fact. This is what Lord Acton, and many others with him, have been afraid
of. In another episode — not so tiny — Roosevelt set up his private system
of morality and his own desires against the usages of nations and the moral-
ity of other men when, as he said, he took the Canal Zone. There are argu-
ments for him and against him in his behavior here — arguments that have
already been put forward with sufficient indignation, humor, or understand-
ing by others. The fact remains that he did indeed take the Canal Zone. For
this he would never conceivably apologize, because he thought his action nec-
essary. But he recognized the dangers of this attitude m himself and others.
He therefore sought one final safeguard — to limit power by limiting its dura-
tion. When he told Trevelyan he was for a strong executive he also told him
he was not for a perpetual executive In 1904 he applied this theory specifi-
cally to the United States. “A wise custom,” he wrote, “. . . limits the Presi-
dent to two terms,” and four years later the time came for him to apply the
theory specifically to himself.

In the spring of 1908 he felt, he said, more vigorous than he had ever
felt before, he had thoroughly enjoyed the Presidency; there was no posi-
tion for which he was better equipped or which he desired more; there was
no one in the country who understood the position better or was better
prepared to administer it than he. In the spring of 1908 he knew also that the
Presidency was his for the asking Believing all this, and knowing all this, he
refused to ask, he even refused to permit the offer. To his sister he explained
that he had always felt the Presidency should be a powerful office and the
President a powerful man and that the corollary of this was that the Presi-
dent should be held accountable before the people after four years and should
leave office after eight years. To Trevelyan he explained more fully: “I don’t
think that any harm comes from the concentration of powers in one man’s
hands, provided the holder does not keep it for more than a certain, definite
time, and then returns to the people from whom he sprang. . . . On the
other hand, the history of the first and second French Republics, not to speak
of the Spanish-Amencan Republics, not to speak of the Commonwealth, in
Seventeenth-Century England, has shown that the strong man, and even the
strong man who is good, may very readily subvert free institutions if he and
the people at large grow to accept his continued possession of vast power
as being necessary to good government ”

xxi

And so, against the conviction that he was better equipped than anyone
else available, against the general clamor of the crowd and the organized
pressure of the loyal and the ambitious, against the enchantment cast by
power over the man who holds it, Roosevelt put the Presidency by for a
season. Reckoned in purely personal terms, the decision of that spring was
moving. It seems obvious from his letters that he was wholly tempted and
half persuaded to continue while he remained fully convinced that he must
make an end of it.

The point has recently been made by those who know about such things
that Roosevelt’s reckless energy, ambition, and insatiable urge to power were
compensatory mechanisms for an initial frailty, defenses against profound
neurotic doubt and insecurity within. The point is penetrating and instruc-
tive. It is possibly equally instructive to discover that in 1908 as on previous
occasions Theodore Roosevelt could do what only the neurotic patient dis-
charged as cured is supposed to be able to do, to control the operations of his
defensive mechanism so that he in no way damages his environment. Secure
in the realization that the law and private morality ordinarily put metes and
bounds on his power, and content in the knowledge that he could in any
case give up power, Roosevelt felt free to use it to achieve what he felt to
be good purposes without paranoia and without guilt.

# # *

These distinguishing characteristics of the Roosevelt administration —
the intuitive approach to situations, the selection of the individual as the
primary object of concern in society, the unruffled attitude toward power —
were not the exclusive property of Theodore Roosevelt. They were shared
in and supported by the leading figures in Iris period — Root, Taft, Moody,
and P. C. Knox in the Cabinet, Allison, Aldrich, Spooner, and O. H. Platt
in the Senate. They were shared in and supported by, also, innumerable
lesser figures in public and private life. If one tries to bring these character-
istics within a single classification one is tempted, with some reservations and
immeasurable trepidation, to say that they are part of the conservative tem-
per, or at least that they are among the primary conservative virtues.

This definition was first brought to mind by a remark of Lionel Trilling
in his admirable essay on the poetry of Rudyard Kipling He points out
that the liberal is interested in developing a body of principled theory in
accordance with which presumably society may be ordered or may order
itself. The conservative on the other hand, inheriting a solid administrative
tradition, is concerned primarily with the governing of men. The liberal
therefore tends to put greater reliance on the legislative process, the conserva-
tive on authority. This is all highly suggestive. Theory is concerned with
general propositions, the governing of men is concerned with acts in detail.
Theory is useful in producing general attitudes or understandings; it is not so
useful in revealing the nature of a particular situation; such revelation is more

XXll

probably the product of the intuition. Theory is useful in furnishing forth a
continuing program for action; it is not so useful in putting the program into
effect, which is the task of authority. Theory is useful in the development of
a general concept about man in society; it tends however to remove the
needs or characteristics of any particular man from consideration.

All this may indicate first that the conservative takes a far more particular
view of life and politics than the liberal. He sets his insights, his own private
moral system, and his own conviction that sound administration depends
upon specific applications of authority from a single office or by a single
man against the general theory and the general application of law that are
the favorite instruments of the liberal. It also suggests that the conservative
is interested in methods and the liberal in ends. The liberal with his principled
theory is attracted by the opportunity to define certain aims or possibilities
in life and to frame these definitions in law. The conservative shares Brown-
ing’s view that life itself — the mere living — is enough. He therefore seeks, by
compromise, by guesses as to what the traffic will bear, and by judicious ap-
plications of power, to maintain a viable situation. There are, no doubt, limi-
tations in both views and no doubt both views are necessary in the develop-
ment of satisfying social organization. And it is here that the conservative
finds himself at a disadvantage. The liberal position is easily transportable, in
a theory, a system of ideas, a body of law, into the future. The great liberal
generalizations, placed as they can be and often are in statements of compel-
ling beauty, may be handed down from generation to generation as influences
and energies of continuing meaning. The conservative position is not so easily
transportable. The concentration on method, the concern with process, the
unorganized and virtually unorganizable product of intuition and insight in
particular situations, the spare record of action taken, all these, rooted as
they are in the contemporary situation, tend to lose their meaning with the
passage of time. The most easily definable thing in the conservative heritage,
the scheme of morals which the conservative uses in place of a body of prin-
cipled theory, becomes, with time, a worn-out or even at times a comic
anachronism.

In passing it is interesting to notice two things. The conservative, even
more than most politicians, is at a distinct disadvantage out of office. Deprived
of his main object, the government of men, and without what Mr. Trilling
called a “body of principled theory,” he tends to fall back on the argument
that if he were put back in office he could run things better. This, as recent
years have demonstrated, is something less than effective opposition. By the
same token the liberal in office tends to lose his pure form. The exigencies of
actual administration tend to force him to modify the chaste body of prin-
cipled theory. It is a pity that historically the conservative has found it so
difficult to acquire ideas, which are the stock in trade of the liberal, while
the liberal has discovered it equally difficult to master the mechanics of
administration. This failure of transfer between the two, no doubt as old as

xxm

Mary and Martha, has produced no little pain and much more confusion
in the affairs of men.

# # #

So one comes back to the beginmng — to George Willard, rueful that
he can retain no meaning from the cheerful day. Like all young men and
many poets he asked too much; he was in search of some emotional response
that he could recollect in tranquillity. There was none, now that the fair was
over. And, in all likelihood, the emotion throbbing in the first decade of this
century is now also lost in the night air of the past. But it is still possible, with
some effort, to recollect action taken and to invest it, in tranquillity, with
contemporary meaning. This presumably is one of the obligations of history.

In the administration of Theodore Roosevelt there may be discovered
the conditions and nature of extraordinarily successful political action, not in
a time when skies are falling or in the days of wrath, but in a time, to use a
fine old word, of normalcy. This action deserves both recollection and anal-
ysis. The elementary investigation conducted here is something less than satis-
factory. Some will demur at the selection of the evidence; others, no doubt,
will disagree with the significances attached to certain actions. This is of no
great moment. The intent has been only to suggest that in the administration
of Theodore Roosevelt there lies open a fertile area of our past for an investi-
gation of the conduct and the art of government. Such searches as may be
made, involving as they do a concentration on process and negotiation in
detail, will rarely reveal the highest aspirations of a nation, but they may well
produce indispensable meanings for people determined to govern themselves.

E. E. M.

XXIV

A Square Deal for Europe
and Asia

September 1905— November 1905

SYMBOLS

Single angle brackets indicate material crossed out but decipherable.
French quotation marks indicate editorial interpretations of illegible words
Square brackets indicate editorial interpolations.

Three dots indicate a missing word.

Four dots indicate two or more missing words.

A superior zero placed after the manuscript source indicates that the
entire letter is m Roosevelt’s handwriting.

3659 • TO ALICE LEE ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, September 2, 1905

Dear Alice: I hope you will enjoy your Chinese trip. I am curious to hear of
your Philippine experiences.

Well, I have had a pretty vigorous summer myself and by no means
a restful one, but I do not care in the least, for it seems now that we have
actually been able to get peace between Japan and Russia. I have had all kinds
of experiences with the envoys and with their Governments, and to the two
latter I finally had to write time after time as a very polite but also very in-
sistent Dutch Uncle. I am amused to see the way in which the Japanese kept
silent. Whenever I wrote a letter to the Czar the Russians were sure to
divulge it, almost always in twisted form, but the outside world never had
so much as a hint of any letter I sent to the Japanese. The Russians became
very angry with me during the course of the proceedings because they
thought I was only writing to them. But they made the amends in good
shape when it was over, and the Czar sent me the following cable of congrat-
ulation, which I thought rather nice of him:

Accept my congratulations and warmest thanks for having brought the peace
negotiations to a successful conclusion, owing to your personal energetic efforts.
My country will gratefully recognize the great part you have played in the Ports-
mouth peace conference.

It has been a wearing summer, because I have had no Secretary of State
and have had to do all the foreign business myself, and as Taft has been
absent I have also had to handle everything connected with Panama myself.
For the last three months the chief business I have had has been in connec-
tion with the peace business, Panama, Venezuela, and Santo Domingo, and
about all of these matters I have had to proceed without any advice or help.

It is enough to give anyone a sense of sardonic amusement to see the way
in which the people generally, not only in my own country but elsewhere,
gauge the work purely by the fact that it succeeded. If I had not brought
about peace I should have been laughed at and condemned. Now I am over-
praised. I am credited with being extremely longheaded, etc. As a matter of
fact I took the position I finally did not of my own volition but because
events so shaped themselves that I would have felt as if I was flinching from
a plain duty if I had acted otherwise. I advised the Russians informally to
make peace on several occasions last winter, and to this they paid no heed.
I had also consulted with the Japanese, telling them what I had told the
Russians. It was undoubtedly due to the Japanese belief that I would act
squarely that they themselves came forward after their great naval victory
and asked me to bring about the conference, but not to let it be known that
they had made the suggestion — so of course this is not to be spoken about.
Accordingly I undertook the work and of course got the assent of both
Governments before I took any public action. Then neither Government

would consent to meet where the other wished and the Japanese would
not consent to meet at The Hague, which was the place I desired. The result
was that they had to meet in this country, and this necessarily threw me into
a position of prominence which I had not sought, and indeed which I had
sought to avoid — though I feel now that unless they had met here they
would never have made peace. Then they met, and after a while came to
a deadlock, and I had to intervene again by getting into direct touch with
the Governments themselves. It was touch and go, but things have apparently
come out right. I say “apparently,” because I shall not feel entirely easy
until the terms of peace are actually signed. The Japanese people have been
much less wise than the Japanese Government, for I am convinced that the
best thing for Japan was to give up trying to get any indemnity. The
Russians would not have given it; and if the war had gone on the Japanese
would simply have spent — that is wasted and worse than wasted — hundreds
of millions of dollars additional without getting back what they had already
paid out.

At present we are having a house party for Ted and Ethel. Ted and
Ethel count themselves as the two first guests, and then, by way of a total
change, Steve and Cornelia Landon, and finally Jack Thayer and Martha
Bacon. Today is rainy and I look forward with gloomy foreboding to a
play in the barn with the smallest folks this afternoon. Mother and I have had
lovely rides and rows together. I chop a good deal and sometimes play tennis.
I am still rather better than James Roosevelt and Jack.

Give my regards to all who are with you and thank the Griscoms
especially for their hospitality. Your loving father

3660 * TO KENTARO KANEKO Roosevelt M.SS.

Private Oyster Bay, September 2, 1905

Dear Baron: Just as soon as peace is finally declared I shall get you to come
out here to lunch and to get that bearskin. Then I shall want to consult with
you as to the form of letter to write to His Majesty.

It seems to me that it would be well for the Japanese to point out, or at
least to lay stress on, the enormous amount they have won. As you know,
I have taken the same view of the indemnity business from the beginning,
and I think this is utterly trivial compared to what Japan has secured. I think
this ought to be pointed out publicly. Sincerely yours

3661 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 2, 1905

Dear Cabot: I was very glad to get your telegram. The following are the
two letters I wrote to the Japanese, which I think (although I may of course

be utterly mistaken) gave the final impulse necessary to make the Mikado’s
government decide for peace. You may notice that I used very effectively a
quotation from your letter as the reason for my communication.

Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
August 22, 1905.

My dear Baron Kaneko:

I think I ought to tell you that I hear on all sides a good deal of complaint
expressed among the friends of Japan as to the possibility of Japan’s continuing the
war for a large indemnity. A prominent member of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, a strong pro-Japanese man, has just written me:

“It does not seem to me as if Japan could possibly afford to continue the war
merely for a money indemnity. I should not blame her if she broke off on the
issue of obtaining the island of Sakhalin. But if she renews the fighting merely to
get money she will not get the money and she will turn sympathy from her in this
country and elsewhere very rapidly. I am bound to say I do not think her case for
indemnity a good one. She holds no Russian territory except Sakhalin, and that
she wants to keep.”

I think your government ought to understand that there will be at least a very
considerable sentiment in America among men who have hitherto been favorable
to the Japanese, along these lines. The willingness to retrocede the northern half
of Sakhalin gives a chance to get some money in addition to that which is justly
due for the Russian prisoners; but I do not think that anything like the amount
advanced by Japan as what she wants — that is, six hundred millions — should be
asked or could possibly be obtained. You know how strongly I have advised the
Russians to make peace. I equally strongly advise Japan not to continue the fight
for a money indemnity. If she does, then I believe that there will be a considerable
shifting of public opimon against her. I do not believe that this public opinion will
have any very tangible effect, but still it should not be entirely disregarded. More-
over, I do not believe that the Japanese nation would achieve its ends if it con-
tinued the war simply on the question of the indemnity. I think that Russia will
refuse to pay and that the general sentiment of the civilized world will back her
in refusing to pay the great amount asked, or anything like such an amount. Of
course if she will pay, then I have nothing to say. But if she will not pay, then you
would find that after making war for another year, even though you were success-
ful in obtaining East Siberia, you would have spent four or five hundred million
dollars additional to what has already been spent, you would have spilled an im-
mense amount of blood, and though you would have obtained East Siberia, you
would have obtained something which you do not want, and Russia would be in
no condition to give you any money at all. She certainly could not give you
enough money to make up for the extra amount you would have spent. Of course
my judgment may be at fault in this matter; but this is my judgment, speaking
conscientiously from the standpoint of the interest of Japan as I see it. Moreover,
I feel of course that every interest of civilization and humanity forbids the con-
tinuance of this war merely for a large indemnity.

This letter is of course strictly confidential; but I should be glad to have you
cable it to your home government, and hope you can do so. If cabled at all, it
should be done at once.

Sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
August 23, 1905.

My dear Baron Kaneko:

In supplement to what I wrote you yesterday, for the consideration of His
Majesty the Japanese Emperor’s envoys, let me add this.

It seems to me that it is to the interest of the great empire of Nippon now to
make peace, for two reasons; 1 self-interest; 2. the interest of the world, to which
she owes a certain duty. Remember, I do not speak of continuing the war rather
than give up Sakhalin, which I think would be right, but of continuing the war m
order to get a great sum of money from Russia, which I think would be wrong.
Of course you may succeed in getting it, but m my judgment even this success
would be too dearly paid for, and if you failed to get the money, no additional
humiliations and losses inflicted on Russia, would repay Japan for the additional
expenditure in blood, m money, in national exhaustion.

1. It is Japan’s interest now to close the war. She has won the control of Korea
and Manchuria; she has doubled her own fleet m destroying that of Russia; she
has Port Arthur, Dalny, the Manchurian railroad; she has Sakhalin. It is not worth
her while to continue the war for money, when so to continue it would probably
eat up more money than she could at the end get back from Russia. She will be
wise now to close the war in triumph, and to take her seat as a leadmg member at
the council table of the nations.

2. Ethically it seems to me that Japan owes a duty to the world at this crisis.
The civilized world looks to her to make peace, the nations believe in her, let her
show her leadership in matters ethical no less than in matters military. The appeal
is made to her in the name of all that is lofty and noble; and to this appeal I hope
she will not be deaf.

With profound regard, sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt.

I am very much pleased to have put the thing through. I am almost
ashamed to say that while physically in fine trim the last three months have
left me feeling rather tired, because from a variety of causes I have not had at
hand to advise with the cabinet ministers who were dealing with the sub-
jects that were at the moment the most important, and so have had to run
everything myself without any intermediaries . 1

Love to Nannie. Ever yours
P.S. (Senator Lodge)

That you may see Meyer’s part in this I include the three cables I sent
to the Czar and his answers, as follows:

Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
August 21, 1905.

Meyer,

American Ambassador,

St. Petersburg.

Please see His Majesty personally immediately and deliver following message
from me:

I earnestly ask Your Majesty to believe that in what I am about to say and to
advise I speak as the earnest well-wisher of Russia and give you the advice I should

1 Roosevelt, on the same day, sent virtually identical letters to Spring Rice and
George von L. Meyer

give were I a Russian patriot and statesman. The Japanese have as I understand it
abandoned their demands for the interned ships and limitation of the Rus sian naval
power in the Pacific, which conditions I felt were improper for Russia to yield to.
Moreover I find to my surprise and pleasure that the Japanese are willing to restore
the northern half of Sakhalin to Russia, Russia of course in such case to pay a sub-
stantial sum for the surrender of territory by the Japanese and for the return of
Russian prisoners. It seems to me that if peace can be obt ain ed substantially on
these terms it will be both just and honorable, and that it would be a dreadful
calamity to have the war continued when peace can be thus obtained. Of the
twelve points which the plenipotentiaries have been discussmg, on eight they have
come to a substantial agreement. Two which were offensive to Russia the Japanese
will, as I understand it, withdraw. The remaining two can be met by an agreement
in principle that the Japanese shall restore or retrocede to Russia the northern half
of Sakhalin, while Russia of course pays an adequate sum for this retrocession and
for the Russian prisoners. If this agreement can be made the question as to the
exact amount can be a subject of negotiation. Let me repeat how earnestly I feel
that it is for Russia’s interest to conclude peace on substantially these terms. No
one can foretell the result of the continuance of the war and I have no doubt that
it is to Japan’s advantage to conclude peace. But m my judgment it is infinitely
more to the advantage of Russia. If peace is not made now and war is continued
it may well be that, though the financial strain upon Japan would be severe, yet
m the end Russia would be shorn of those east Siberian provinces which have been
won for her by the heroism of her sons during the last three centuries. The pro-
posed peace leaves the ancient Russian boundaries absolutely intact. The only
change in territory will be that Japan will get that part of Sakhalin which was hers
up to thirty years ago. As Sakhalin is an island it is, humanly speaking, impossible
that the Russians should reconquer it in view of the disaster to their navy, and to
keep the northern half of it is a guarantee for the security of Vladivostok and
eastern Siberia for Russia. It seems to me that every consideration of national self-
interest, of military expediency and of broad humanity makes it eminently wise
and right for Russia to conclude peace substantially along these lines, and it is my
hope and prayer that Your Majesty may take this view.

Theodore Roosevelt.

St. Petersburg, August 23, 1905.

The Czar received me in Peterhof at 4 p.m. Said he would welcome peace
which he believed to be honorable and lasting, but reiterates that Russia will not
pay any war mdemnity whatever. In that, his conscience tells him he is right and
he feels sure he has the support of the nation. Appreciates that their naval arm
has been cut off, but still has an army which has endurance, opposed to the Japa-
nese army, which latter army is thousands of miles from St. Petersburg. He added,
if necessary I will join the army myself and go to front. Claims that it should not
be forgotten that the Japanese commenced hostilities; that they now have obtained
all that they went to war for and a great deal more. He is unwilling to pay a
substantial sum for half of Sakhalin as it (would be) interpreted as a war indemnity
differently expressed. He said I should prefer to lose territory temporarily than
to humiliate the country by paying a war indemnity as though a vanquished na-
tion. Russia is not in the position of France in 1870. The Czar told me he had
received yesterday telegram from German Emperor urging peace; read me his
reply in which he said peace was impossible if Japan insisted upon any war indem-
nity. Closeted with the Emperor two hours, at the end of which time he informed
me of the terms on which he would conclude peace. Acceptance of the eight points
substantially agreed upon by the plenipotentiaries at Portsmouth, (no ? ) payment

of war indemnity but a liberal and generous payment for care and maintenance
of Russian prisoners but not such a sum as could be interpreted for a war indem-
nity, withdrawal of Japan’s claims for interned ships and limitation of naval power
in the Pacific, Russia to possess north half of Sakhalin while Japan to retain south-
ern half (that portion which formerly belonged to Japan). The Emperor in-
structed me to express his thanks and full appreciation to the President for the
efforts that he has made in behalf of peace.

Meyer.

Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
August 23, 1905.

Meyer,

St. Petersburg.

Make clear to His Majesty that if my suggestion is adopted then the whole
question of what reasonable amount is to be paid for the retrocession of northern
Sakhalin and for the return of the Russian prisoners will remain a subject for
further negotiations, so that the acceptance in principle of the terms I have sug-
gested would not commit the Russian Government to any particular sum of money
and above all would not in any way commit Russia to pay any amount which
would be exorbitant or humiliating. Please send this supplementary cable to His
Majesty at once and further explain that I of course cannot be sure Japan will act
on my suggestions, but that I~know she ought to, and that if Russia accedes to
them I shall try my best to get Japan to accede to them also.

Theodore Roosevelt.

St. Petersburg, August 24, 1905.

Notify President that his second cable has been forwarded to Czar. Let me
know if his was sent before or after the arrival of mine. I discussed for two hours
with Czar yesterday Sakhalin and payment of substantial sum for north half. Tried
to commit him to maximum amount he would be willing to pay. Emperor re-
peatedly stated that he had given his word publicly not to pay war indemnity of
any kind or surrender Russian soil. It was only after I got him to acknowledge
that lower half of Sakhalin had been, like Port Arthur, merely temporary Russian
territory, that he agreed to a division of Sakhalin. I think moreover that by negoti-
ation Russia might consent to pay land value of north half of Sakhalin on same
basis as Alaska was sold to us. Discussed it with Czar (after he absolutely refused
to pay substantial sum) but he said how can the value be ascertained^ Shies at it
and fears Russians would consider any payment dishonorable. Claims he must act
according to his conscience in this matter. Can you advise me of probable amount
of money Japan has now on deposit in United States^

Meyer.

Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
August 25, 1905.

Meyer,

St. Petersburg.

My second cable was forwarded after the arrival of your first. Japan has now
on deposit in Umted States about fifty million dollars of the last war loan. I do
not know whether she has more. Please tell His Majesty that I dislike intruding any
advice on him again, but for fear of misapprehension I venture again to have these
statements made to him. I of course would not have him act against his conscience,
but I earnestly hope his conscience will guide him so as to prevent the continuance
of a war when this continuance may involve Russia in a greater calamity than has

ever befallen it since it first rose to power in both Europe and Asia. I see it pub-
licly announced today by Count Lamsdorff that Russia will neither pay money
nor surrender territory. I beg His Majesty to consider that such an announcement
means absolutely nothing when Sakhalin is already m the hands of the Japanese.
If on such a theory the war .is persevered in no one can foretell the result, but the
military representatives of the Powers most friendly to Russia assure me that the
continuance of the war will probably mean the loss not merely of Sakhalin but of
eastern Siberia, and if after a year of struggle this proves true then any peace
which came could only come on terms which would indicate a real calamity. Most
certainly I think it will be a bad thing for Japan to go on with the war, but I think
it will be a far worse thing for Russia. There is now a fair chance of getting peace
on honorable terms, and it seems to me that it will be a dreadful thing for Russia
and for all the civilized world if the chance is thrown away. My advices are that
the plenipotentiaries at Portsmouth have come to a substantial agreement on every
point except the money question and the question of Sakhalin. Let it now be an-
nounced that as regards those two points peace shall be made on the basis of the
retrocession of the northern half of Sakhalin to Russia on payment of a sum of
redemption money by Russia, the amount of this redemption money and the
amount to be paid for the Russian prisoners to be settled by further negotiations.
This does not commit the Russian Government as to what sum shall be paid, leav-
ing it open to further negotiation If it is impossible for Russia and Japan to come
to an agreement on this sum they might possibly call in the advice of say some high
French or German official appointed by or with the consent of Russia and some
English official appointed by or with the consent of Japan and have these men
then report to the negotiators their advice, which might or might not be binding
upon the negotiators This it seems to me would be an entirely honorable way of
settling the difficulty. I cannot of course guarantee that Japan will agree to this
proposal, but if His Majesty agrees to it I will endeavor to get the Japanese Gov-
ernment to do so likewise I earnestly hope that this cable of mine can receive His
Majesty’s attention before the envoys meet tomorrow, and I cannot too strongly
say that I feel that peace now may prevent untold calamities in the future. Let me
repeat that m this proposal I suggest that neither Russia nor Japan do anything
but face accomplished facts and that I do not specify or attempt to specify what
amount should be paid, leaving the whole question of the amount to be paid as
redemption money for the northern half of Sakhalin to be settled by further nego-
tiation. I fear that if these terms are rejected it may be possible that Japan will give
up any idea of making peace or of ever getting money and that she will decide to
take and to keep Vladivostok and Harbin and the whole Manchurian railway and
this of course would mean that she would take east Siberia. Such a loss to Russia
would m my judgment be a disaster of portentous size, and I earnestly desire to
save Russia from such a risk If peace is made on the terms I have mentioned Russia
is left at the end of this war substantially unharmed, the national honor and interest
saved, and the results of what Russians have done in Asia since the days of Ivan
the Terrible unimpaired. But if peace is now rejected and if Japan decides that she
will give up any idea of obtaining any redemption money or any other sum no
matter how small the military situation is such that there is at least a good chance
and in the estimate of most outside observers a strong probability that though
Japan will have to make heavy sacrifices she will yet take Harbin, Vladivostok and
east Siberia, and if this is once done the probabilities are overwhelming that she
could never be dislodged. I cannot too strongly state my conviction that while
peace m accordance with the suggestions above outlined is earnestly to be desired
from the standpoint of the whole world and from the standpoints of both com-

batants, yet that far above all it is chiefly to Russia’s interest and perhaps to her
vital interest that it should come in this way and at this time.

Theodore Roosevelt.

St. Petersburg, August 26.

President Roosevelt:

The following note is in answer to your cable of 24th and was received while
translating your cable of 26th*

“I have not failed to place before the Emperor copy of President’s telegram of
which Your Excellency sent me full text. In conformity with what was said to
you by my august chief during the audience of the 23d and conforming (to) the
memorandum presented by you to His Majesty upon this subject the Emperor has
ordered Witte to declare to the Japanese plenipotentiaries at the next meeting that
His Imperial Majesty cannot in any case modify the conditions definitely decided
upon and which were communicated to you m person by the Emperor to be
brought to the knowledge of the President. (Signed) Lamsdorff.”

I have since presented your cable of 26th to Lamsdorff, which he will forward
at once to Peterhof, though he says Czar’s decision, as above stated, is final. Warned
him of the danger if war is continued, of Russia losing the whole of Sakhalin
(. . .) and eastern Siberia. They prefer take this risk than to pay any form of
indemnity. Lamsdorff believes that the Czar in taking this stand has the people
behind him.

Meyer.

St. Petersburg, August 27, 1905.

President Roosevelt:

I have just received the following note from Lamsdorff:

“Have not failed to bring to attention of His Majesty the communication to
him from the President which Your Excellency gave me yesterday. Taking all
cognizance of this message, with the serious attention which it merits, His Majesty
does not see the possibility of modifying his point of view on the conditions of
peace which alone could be considered as acceptable for Russia. This point of view
is much the better known to you as it was personally communicated and ex-
pounded to you by His Majesty with the request that the substance thereof be
transmitted m a friendly message to the President.”

Meyer.

You will see that Meyer played a most useful part m persuading the Czar
to give up the south half of Sakhalin, without which peace could not have
been made. Meyer has amply justified his appointment.

I have also received from Durand a letter running as follows

Lenox, August 31, 1905

Mr. President
Sir

I have today received your letter of the 29th August, enclosing a copy of cer-
tain messages sent to the American Ambassador at St. Petersburg and of two
letters addressed to Baron Kaneko.

I am sending these papers to Lord Lansdowne, who will I am sure be much
obliged to you for letting him have them, and will show them to the King and
Mr. Balfour.

I have also telegraphed the contents to him.

I have little doubt that these letters to Baron Kaneko turned the scale and
induced the Japanese to forego their claim to indemnity. Though some of them
may not understand now they will recognize hereafter that you gave them the
advice which was best for their interests, and I take this opportunity of expressing
my most hearty congratulations on the wonderful success of your efforts to end
the war.

Lord Lansdowne has not informed me whether he used his influence in the
same direction, but he repeated to Tokyo the telegram I addressed to him on re-
ceipt of your letter of the 23d August, and it was communicated to the Japanese
Government, who referred to it as havmg been considered m the final council held
at the Palace.

I remain, Sir,

Yours very respectfully

H. M. Durand.

The message he refers to of mine was one which I sent him asking that
England use her influence with Japan just as I had already been asking the
German Emperor and the French Government to use their influence with
Russia. The Kaiser did his level best, but neither he nor I had much effect
upon the Czar, although doubtless what he did helped make the Czar cede
the south half of Sakhalin. The Kaiser behaved very well in this business. You
doubtless saw the enthusiastic telegram he sent me on the conclusion of peace.
On second thought, however, as you are at Tuckanuck you may not have
seen it, so here are the telegrams of congratulation from the Kaiser, the Czar
and the Mikado:

Neues Palais, August 29, 1905.

President Theodore Roosevelt

Just read cable from America announcing agreement of peace conference on
preliminaries of peace. Am overjoyed, express most sincere congratulations at the
great success due to your untiring efforts. The whole of mankind must unite and
will do so in thankmg you for the great boon you have given it.

William, I. R.

Peterhof, Alexandria, August 31, 1905.

President Roosevelt

Accept my congratulations and warmest thanks for having brought the peace
negotiations to a successful conclusion owmg to your personal energetic efforts.
My country will gratefully recognize the great part you have played in the Ports-
mouth peace conference.

Nicholas.

Tokyo, September 3, 1905.

The President*

I have received with gratification your message of congratulation conveyed
through our plenipotentiaries and thank you warmly for it. To your disinterested
and unremitting efforts in the interests of peace and humanity I attach the high
value which is their due and assure you of my grateful appreciation of the dis-
tinguished part you have taken m the establishment of peace based upon principles
essential to the permanent welfare and tranquility of the far east.

Mutsu Hito.

The other day I was reading Democracy , 2 that novel which made a great
furor among the educated incompetents and the pessimists generally about
twenty-five years ago. It was written by Godkin, perhaps with assistance
from Mrs. Henry Adams. It had a superficial and rotten cleverness, but it was
essentially false, essentially mean and base, and it is amusing to read it now
and see how completely events have given it the lie.

3662 * TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 4, 1905

My dear Bonaparte: I have wired you about the visit of the British squadron.
I think that even such a rabbit as McClellan will pluck up heart enough to do
the decent and courteous thing to the British squadron after the election is
over. Moreover, it is a good thing that our Jackies themselves want to enter-
tain the British Jackies. I understand they have raised among themselves some
$10,000 for this purpose, and in the circumstances even Tammany will prob-
ably not see any politics in trying to do something that would be a discredit
to the nation.

If the enclosed letters seem to meet the situation, will you send them
respectively to Mr. Darling and Mr. Newberry. 1

Evidently that French boy had not known the change of date, for the
State Department notified the French Government about it. Sincerely yours
P.S. I have your two letters of the 4th. As for the Santo Domingo matter,
tell Admiral Bradford to stop any revolution. I intend to keep the island in
statu quo until the Senate has had time to act on the treaty, and I shall treat
any revolutionary movement as an effort to upset the modus vivendL That
this is ethically right I am dead sure, even though there may be some technical
or red tape difficulty.

In the submarine business I think that I sympathize entirely with the view
you have come to and that I shall endorse your position of differing with
both the opinion of your superior and your expert subordinate! But I want
to look up one or two facts. My understanding is that while there are more
applicants for the service than the number of men yet required, nevertheless
the really good men want to leave on account of the present differences of
pay. There are always plenty of restless men who apply, but the men whom
it is desirable to keep do not wish to stay where, as at present, they are

2 A story of Washington published anonymously in 1880 by Henry Adams. It
reveals the fatal attraction that power always exerted on the author, the subtle under-
standing he had of political manipulation, and the unhappy fact that Henry Adams
was not a novelist.

1 Truman Handy Newberry, Michigan Republican, Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
1905-1908, Secretary of the Navy, 1908-1909; Umted States Senator, 1919-1922. New-
berry’s presumed competence as a businessman and government administrator has
been obscured by the unhappy reputation he acquired m his senatorial campaign
against Henry Ford.

penalized for the service. I wish to talk with one or two of the officers
of the submarines before I decide definitely in the matter.

I trust you will have a pleasant holiday.

3663 * TO PHILANDER CHASE KNOX Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 5, 1905

My dear Senator Knox: In connection with the charges made against Mr.
Leib much more serious matters have come to light than those concerning
which the Civil Service Commission made its report to me. 1 I am sorry to
say that Mr. Leib must send in his resignation to me. I desire it at once. He
has been making temporary appointments altogether disproportionate to the
number of permanent employees under him, and I regret to state that no less
than three of these temporary appointments were of relatives of his — his
cousin, his father-in-law, and his sister. Moreover, it appears that he is guilty
of illegal conduct in connection with civil service examinations, and per-
sonally coached his sister for one of these examinations, for which act he was
reproved by Secretary Shaw, and the Civil Service Commission, with the
approval of the Secretary, canceled the examination. The Secretary further-
more informed Mr. Leib at the time that his conduct in giving to a temporary
clerk, Miss L. H. Wagner, who was also an applicant for the examination, the
keys or answers to the note and coin counting tests, in the form of pencil
memoranda, to be copied by her, “was grossly improper and could not be
too severely censured.” The Secretary ended his letter (which was dated
February 20th last) by stating that the conduct of Mr. Leib about the exami-
nation in question was very unsatisfactory to the Department, and that the
Department was giving him “the benefit of every doubtful consideration in
the case in not bringing the matter to the attention of the President for his
consideration and action.” If the Department had brought the matter to my
attention I should have been obliged to remove Mr. Leib. The friction be-
tween him and the Civil Service Commission has gone steadily on in spite of
the consideration then shown him by Secretary Shaw, and I am sorry to say
that in my judgment it is not possible longer to retain him, and that I must
therefore ask that he be told to forward his resignation forthwith. I am
sorry to have to reach this conclusion. Sincerely yours

3664 • TO FRANCIS VINTON GREENE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 5, 1905

Dear General: Curiously enough it was only the day before yesterday that

1 William R. Leib, Assistant United States Treasurer at Philadelphia, was also chair-
man of the Schuylkill County Republican Committee. Guilty of the charges enumer-
ated by Roosevelt, he had also violated civil service rules by soliciting campaign
contributions from federal employees. Neither Knox nor Penrose protested his
dismissal.

Austin and Mrs. Wadsworth were telling me about you and your great
success at the sports and how you enjoyed it, and also were giving me the
news about Mrs. Greene; and now comes your more than kind and friendly
letter. I do hope Mrs. Greene will not only be benefitted by but will enjoy her
brief European trip. When you return you will sometime be running down
to Washington, and then remember how much I want to see you and how
many things I have to talk over with you.

I cannot help hoping that Warwick, whom I saw at Commencement, will
finally decide to go out to Manila. I think the experience will offset the delay
in his getting established in business.

Of course I am pleased at what you say as to the peace conference, and it
was a totally new idea to me that what I had done should “be a matter of
discussion in every bazaar m India, Siberia and Central Asia.” Moreover you
are exactly right when you say that peace could have been made only by
disregarding the old conventional diplomatic methods. At the various crises
I communicated personally with the Czar, the Mikado, the Kaiser, Balfour,
Rouvier, and so forth. I shall show you the dispatches when you come to
Washington if you would care to see them. My dear fellow, you need not
for a moment fear that I shall get dizzy. Any man with any sense cannot but
feel a half-cynical, half-amused interest of a by no means too intense quality,
both in the praise and blame he receives on an occasion like this. Just at the
moment people are speaking altogether too well of me. When such is the
case, reaction invariably follows. Next year we shall have bad crops, or
Congress won’t agree how to handle the deficit, or something like that will
happen, and then they will all be a unit in attacking me just as they are now a
unit in praising me; and I shall certainly try not to be overmuch cast down
then or overelated now. Sincerely yours

3665 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 6, 1905

Dear Cabot: I shall find out from Root what time after the 14th he can come
and then get you and Choate to come down here and meet him.

As soon as I found that Palmer was going to turn out Ricketts I turned
out Palmer instead. O’Brien’s man, Rossiter, I am inclined to think is a good
fellow. I have told some of his New York friends to try to get Senator Platt’s
endorsement for him. My impressions of Ricketts are favorable. Cortelyou,
curiously enough, is against him, but I am inclined to think he is prejudiced
in the matter. 1

1 Conditions in the Government Printing Office posed, as usual, political and admin-
istrative problems. Public Printer Frank Wayland Palmer, long unfriendly toward
his chief foreman, Oscar J. Ricketts, had ordered Ricketts to resign because of
alleged insubordination. Roosevelt prevented this by discharging Palmer and ap-
pointing Ricketts acting printer. T. C. Platt, however, who had for many years
looked upon the Printing Office as a private preserve, opposed the selection of

If Sturgis Bigelow, who ought to know better, does not see things straight
about the Russian-Japanese peace, no wonder the Jap mob goes crooked.
I think that the Japanese would have gained nothing by going on with the
war and would have lost a great deal.

I have asked Root to take up the Newfoundland matter as soon as possible.
If we can tide over this year I think the soreness m Newfoundland will have
worn off and we can then come to a decent understanding.

With love to Nannie, Ever yours

[Handwritten] The outbreak in Tokio is unpleasant evidence that the
Japanese mob — I hope not the Japanese people — had had it’s head com-
pletely turned, the peace is evidently a wise one from our standpoint too.

3666 • to mutsu hito Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, September 6, 1905

Your Majesty: Through Baron Komura I send you this letter, to express, as
strongly as I can, my sense of the magnanimity, and above all of the cool-
headed, farsighted wisdom, you have shown in making peace as you did. I
am certain your people will soon appreciate to the full the inestimable
benefit you have thereby conferred upon the empire over which you bear
sway. During the last eighteen months your generals and admirals, your
soldiers and sailors, have won imperishable renown for Nippon. Their
glory — your glory, and your nation’s glory — will last as long as history
is written, as long as mighty deeds are remembered, as long as the race
of man endures. You have crowned triumphant war by a peace m which
every great object for which you fought is secured, and in so doing
you have given to the world a signal and most striking example of how
it is possible for a victorious nation to achieve victory over others with-
out losing command over itself. In every nation there are hotheads who
demand the impossible, who are discontented if they do not get something
which, if they were allowed to try to get it, they would have to pay for at
a cost altogether disproportionate to, and in excess of, its value. Had your

Ricketts or of William S. Rossiter, the chief clerk of the Census Bureau, a New
Yorker who had the talent and experience for the position. The President, defer-
ring to Platt's protests, finally appointed Charles A. Stillings of Massachusetts, like
Rossiter an experienced man.

Roosevelt’s preference for Ricketts over Palmer grew out of difficulties m the
Printing Office which the Keep Commission had already investigated Palmer had
purchased typesetting machines from the Lanston Monotype Company. The com-
peting Mergenthaler Company had then charged Palmer with signing an illegal
contract and with overriding the authority of Ricketts to requisition the purchase.
Roosevelt ordered an investigation by the Keep Commission. The report of the
commission, made public on September nth, found no basis for the Mergenthaler
Company accusations of illegality in the contract. It did, however, charge Palmer
with prejudicial action in neither testing the Mergenthaler machines nor consulting
Ricketts. The commission, therefore, recommended that the contract be revoked.
The President sustained the contract, but at his first opportunity removed Palmer.

nation listened at this time to the advice of such men, they would have led
it into a continuance of the war which, no matter how damaging to Japan’s
opponent, would also have been necessarily of damage to Japan far beyond
what could have been offset by any resulting benefit. The greatness of a
people, like the greatness of a man, is often attested quite as clearly by
moderation and wisdom in using a triumph as by the triumph itself. Many a
great victory has been hopelessly marred, and its effects undone, by its
arrogant and shortsighted misuse.

In this crucial hour, your Majesty has shown that the people of Nippon
were true alike to their ancient spirit and to the needs of the modem world;
for you have shown, and through you your people have shown, that you and
they possess that rare combination, the combination of the high valor and
foresight which win victories, and the lofty wisdom which turns them to the
best account.

With the utmost admiration and respect, believe me. Very faithfully
yours

3667 • TO HERMANN SPECK VON STERNBERG Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 6, 1905

Dear Speck: I have just received your most interesting letter of August 21st.
What a wonderful people those Romans were. The Emperor has done a bit
of work, as characteristic as it is excellent, in excavating and restoring the
fort in question. Is it not astonishing how completely the art of war was lost
when the Roman Empire broke up 3 The empire had been a totally artificial
product for a couple of centuries when the break came, and it was its ex-
traordinary organization and administration, especially in military matters,
which enabled it to go on. Within its borders population had shrunk and the
standard of citizenship lowered so that the descendants of the Old Romans,
and those (mostly themselves the descendants of slaves) who were associated
with them in citizenship, had become for the most part beneath contempt,
and yet their military science and traditions, that enabled them to build such
forts as that you describe and to tram their soldiers to use such weapons as
that you describe, still enabled them to overmatch tumultuous hordes of
brave barbarians.

When the crash came these barbarians were not intellectually sufficiently
advanced to make any use of the weapons of war which the Romans had
through centuries evolved; and even the memory of scientific warfare per-
ished.

I sent you the two notes I had sent the Mikado’s Government for I felt
that you ought to understand, and that the Emperor ought to understand, the
pressure I had brought to bear upon Japan. We were only able to make the

Czar yield on one point, but that was the vital point of the southern half of
Sakhalin. The Japanese are now having trouble with their own people at
home, and Griscom has just cabled us that there is heavy rioting in Tokyo
and a tendency to attack all foreigners. Why m the world the Japanese states-
men, usually so astute, permitted their people to thmk they had to get a large
indemnity, I cannot understand. If they had in the beginning blown their
trumpets over the immense amount they were getting; if they had shown
how Korea was theirs, Manchuria in effect theirs, Port Arthur and Dalny
theirs, how they had won a triumph which since the days of Napoleon has
only been paralleled by Germany m 1870 — if they had done all this I think
they could have made their people feel proud instead of humiliated. The
governing class m Japan have appeared very well, but the people, at least in
Tokyo, are making much such an exhibition of themselves as the Russians
have been making in their own homes. I do most earnestly hope that the Czar
will turn his attention m good faith to reform at home.

I enclose to the Baroness — to whom I beg you will give our warm re-
gards — that Japanese book for the Princess Ratibor, which I have at last
succeeded in obtaining.

I have written Senator Aldrich to see if we cannot arrange for the negoti-
ations on the tariff as you suggest, and I hope it can be done.

I look forward to seeing you in Washington. Faithfully yours

P.S. Your second letter has just come. I did my best to get Pierpont
Morgan and the Hankow concession people to stand to their guns, but they
would not do it, stating (and I think with truth) that they could not without
improperly disregarding the interest of their stockholders. They said that the
price offered them was large — probably much larger than they could get
in the way of damages before any arbitral body — and that if the Chinese
would not allow the railroad to be built all they could hope for was damages.
I am greatly interested m what you tell me about the English Government
authorizing a loan for the amount to be paid. I have heard utterly conflicting
accounts as to how this money was to be paid. I shall want to talk all this
over with you in October.

If you see His Majesty tell him (but only for his own ear) that m Meyer’s
last audience with the Czar the latter commented upon the fact that when-
ever Meyer made a visit to him, simultaneously there came a cable from the
German Emperor. I think this may amuse the Emperor.

I myself am both amused and interested as to what you say about the
interest excited about my trip in the Plunger . I went down in it chiefly be-
cause I did not like to have the officers and enlisted men think I wanted them
to try things I was reluctant to try myself. I believe a good deal can be done
with these submarines, although there is always the danger of people getting
carried away with the idea and thinking that they can be of more use than
they possibly could be.

3668 * to carl schurz Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 8, 1905

My dear Mr. Schurz: I thank you for your congratulations. As to what you
say about disarmament — which I suppose is the rough equivalent of “the
gradual diminution of the oppressive burdens imposed upon the world by
armed peace” — lam not clear either what can be done or what ought to be
done. If I had been known as one of the conventional type of peace advocates
I could have done nothing whatever in bringing about peace now, I would
be powerless m the future to accomplish anything, and I would not have
been able to help confer the boons upon Cuba, the Philippines, Porto Rico
and Panama, brought about by our action therein. If the Japanese had not
armed during the last twenty years, this would indeed be a sorrowful century
for Japan. If this country had not fought the Spanish War, if we had failed
to take the action we did about Panama; all mankind would have been the
loser. While the Turks were butchering the Armenians the European powers
kept the peace and thereby added a burden of infamy to the Nineteenth Cen-
tury, for in keeping that peace a greater number of lives were lost than in
any European war since the days of Napoleon, and these lives were those of
women and children as well as of men; while the moral degradation, the bru-
tality inflicted and endured, the aggregate of hideous wrong done, surpassed
that of any war of which we have record in modern times. Until people get
it firmly fixed in their minds that peace is valuable chiefly as a means to right-
eousness, and that it can only be considered as an end when it also coincides
with righteousness, we can do only a limited amount to advance its coming
on this earth. There is of course no analogy at present between international
law and private or municipal law, because there is no sanction of force for
the former while there is for the latter. Inside our own nation the law-abiding
man does not have to arm himself against the lawless simply because there is
some armed force — the police, the sheriff’s posse, the national guard, the
regulars — which can be called out to enforce the laws. At present there is
no similar international force to call on, and I do not as yet see how it could
at present be created. Hitherto peace has often come only because some
strong and on the whole just power has by armed force, or the threat of
armed force, put a stop to disorder. In a very interesting French book the
other day I was reading of how the Mediterranean was freed from pirates
only by the “pax Britannica,” established by England’s naval force. The
hopeless and hideous bloodshed and wickedness of Algiers and Turkestan
were stopped, and only could be stopped, when civilized nations m the shape
of Russia and France took possession of them. The same was true of Burma
and the Malay states, as well as Egypt, with regard to England. Peace has
come only as the sequel to the armed interference of a civilized power which,
relatively to its opponent, was a just and beneficent power If England had
disarmed to the point of being unable to conquer the Sudan and protect

1 6

Egypt, so that the Mahdists had established their supremacy in northeastern
Africa, the result would have been a horrible and bloody calamity to man-
kind. It was only the growth of the European powers m military efficiency
that freed eastern Europe from the dreadful scourge of the Tartar and par-
tially freed it from the dreadful scourge of the Turk. Unjust war is dreadful;
a just war may be the highest duty. To have the best nations, the free and
civilized nations, disarm and leave the despotisms and barbarisms with great
military force, would be a calamity compared to which the calamities caused
by all the wars of the Nineteenth Century would be trivial. Yet it is not easy
to see how we can by international agreement state exactly which power
ceases to be free and civilized and which comes near the line of barbarism or
despotism For example, I suppose it would be very difficult to get Russia and
Japan to come to a common agreement on this point, and there are at least
some citizens of other nations, not to speak of their governments, whom it
would also be hard to get together.

This does not m the least mean that it is hopeless to make the effort. It
may be that some scheme will be developed. America, fortunately, can cor-
dially assist in such an effort, for no one in his senses would suggest our dis-
armament, and though we should continue to perfect our small navy and our
minute army, I do not think it necessary to increase the number of our ships
— at any rate as things look now — nor the number of our soldiers. Of course
our navy must be kept up to the highest point of efficiency, and the replacing
of old and worthless vessels by first-class new ones may involve an increase
in the personnel; but not enough to interfere with our action along the lines
you have suggested But before I would know how to advocate such action,
save m some such way as commending it to the attention of The Hague Tri-
bunal, I would have to have a feasible and rational plan of action presented.
Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] It seems to me that a general stop in the increase of the
war navies of the world might be a good thing, but I would not like to speak
too positively offhand. Of course it is only in continental Europe that the
armies are too large, and before advocating action as regards them I should
have to weigh matters carefully — including by the way such a matter as the
Turkish army. At any rate nothing useful can be done unless with the clear
recognition that we put peace second to righteousness.

3669 * to kuang su Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 9, 1905

I share Your Majesty’s feelings of deep satisfaction at the results of the nego-
tiations between Japan and Russia whereby the war between two great na-
tions is brought to an honorable close and the integrity of the Chinese Empire
preserved, assuring to the Manchurian provinces the blessing of peace and
the benefits of untrammeled intercourse with the world Such a result is of

incalculable benefit to the world in general and to the peoples of the east m
particular. In the name of my countrymen I thank you for your congratula-
tions.

3670 • TO WILLIAM WOODVILLE ROCKHILL Roosevelt MSS .

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 10, 1905

Treaty of peace transfers Russian rights in Port Arthur and Dalny to Japan.
In my judgment China cannot with propriety question the efficacy of this
transfer or hesitate to allow Japanese all the rights the Russians were exercis-
ing. If China makes any trouble about the transfer in question you will at
the proper time state this strongly to the Chinese Government. 1

Please inform Japanese Minister of the contents of this telegram.

3671 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1905

My dear Reid: I thank you for your very interesting letter. I think you were
right in not giving out that interview. I have had just the same difficulty
myself. I wanted to speak in the strongest terms of how well the Japanese
had behaved, and yet was hampered by my unwillingness to offend the
Russians.

The Kaiser stood by me like a trump. I did not get much direct assistance
from the English government, but I did get indirect assistance for I learned
that they forwarded to Japan my note to Durand, and I think that the signing
of the Anglo-Japanese treaty made Japan feel comparatively safe as to the
future. While it was even more to Russia’s interest than to Japan’s to make
peace, yet it was also absolutely to Japan’s interest. For her to continue the
war for an indemnity, with the practical certainty of spending two dollars to
get one and a likelihood of not even getting the one, would have been even
greater folly than wickedness.

I was amused at what you told me as to the British Ambassador to Paris,
Sir Francis Bertie, saying that the terms were very hard on Japan and would
not be very well received there, and would tend to make the United States
and me very unpopular in Japan, and would have commercial and political
results, and so forth. Some of the English officials as well as some influential
British merchants m the East have taken this tone and have encouraged the
Japanese to demand the impossible. I do not know whether an attitude like
that of Sir Francis is due to downright stupidity or desire to see Russia wor-
ried and exhausted, no matter how great the damage to Japan. At any rate
it was a shortsighted view, alike from the standpoint of Japan and from the
standpoint of England. The Japanese government — that is the group of so-

1 In a treaty of December 22, 1905, with Japan, China agreed to the provisions of

the Russo-Japanese peace treaty.

called “elder statesmen” as well as the Mikado — are sincerely grateful to
me, and as you know, every step I took was only after previous consultation
with them, «and» that I all along told them that they could not possibly get
an indemnity unless Russia was sufficiently panic-stricken to give it. That the
people may visit upon me and upon America some portion of the discontent
which ought to be visited upon themselves and upon their own leaders for mis-
leading them as to what they might obtain, is possible. In international mat-
ters I am no great believer in the long-continued effects of gratitude. The
United States must rely m the last resort upon their own preparedness and
resolution, and not upon the good will of any outside nation. I think England
has a more sincere feeling of friendliness for us than has any other power; but
even this English friendliness would be a broken reed if we leaned on it, un-
less we were entirely able in addition to fight for our own hand. No matter
how great our strength, we could of course make trouble for ourselves if we
behaved wrongly. But merely to be harmless would not save us from aggres-
sion. If we keep our navy at a high standard of efficiency and at the same
time are just and courteous in our dealings with foreign nations, we will be
able to remain on good terms with Japan, with Germany, with all foreign
powers. As for Tokyo, I have no right to expect that in the long run its pol-
icy will be on a higher level than the policy of St. Petersburg, of Paris or of
London.

I read the little skit you sent. Of course it is the kind of thing that has
often been done. Nevertheless, the man is right in painting some of the dan-
gers which threaten not merely the empire of Great Britain but all occidental
civilization. There are some unpleasant resemblances between the occidental
civilization of the present day — that is the civilization of America and Aus-
tralia no less than of the European nations west of Russia — and the Hellen-
istic civilization of the centuries succeeding the death of Alexander, no less
than the civilization of the Roman world during the first century or two of
the empire. There are great differences also, however; and moreover, the
evils pointed out in the pamphlet as bearing sway in Great Britain and Aus-
tralia flourish to an even greater extent in France, to an only less extent in
Germany and Scandinavia, and to quite as great an extent here, although here
they are hardly as bad m their effects because we have a whole continent to
work on and draw an immense mass of immigrants from abroad. The decline
in the birth rate I should put as the chief cause as well as the chief symptom
of what is evil m the nations I have mentioned; but we must not forget that it
has not declined in Italy and but little if at all in Spam, and yet the conditions
are quite as unsatisfactory in the former and much more so in the latter coun-
try. The general softening of fibre, the selfishness, the luxury, the relaxation
of standards, the growth of a spirit such as that of the anti-imperialists — all
these are among the unpleasant symptoms which cannot but give us concern
for the future. But there are plenty of good symptoms too; and after all none
of us can read the future, and our duty is simple. Let us stand valiantly for

what is decent and right; let us strive hard, and take with unshaken front
whatever comes, whether it be good or ill. Then the fates must decide what
the outcome shall be.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. Reid Sincerely yours

P S. Do you remember writing me as to the rather impertinent and offen-
sive remarks made to you about our administration of the Philippines by an
Englishman who was a Governor of a Malay Province, a man named Swett-
ingham, or something like that, who had written a clever book called The
Real Malay ? 1 Well, the other day Leonard Wood was out here and I had a
very satisfactory time with him He told me of what had been done in the
last three years under him in the Moro country. As a matter of fact during
those three years we have had more difficult work to do than the English
have had to do in the Malay Settlements, and it has been done better. It is
quite true, as the English say, that we ought to have examined what they
have done m Egypt, India and Malay Straits in connection with our own
work in the Philippines. But they fail to understand that such an examination
would have been useless if it had not been conducted with quite as great care
to find out what we should not copy as what we should. In the Moro Prov-
inces we have had substantially the same problems that the English have had
in dealing with the Malays and perhaps the Burmese, and we have done our
work at least as well as they have theirs, while none of their men in Burma
or the Straits Settlements have come up to, for instance, Wood’s record. In
the rest of the Philippines our problem was entirely different from the British
problem, and while we have made some mistakes they are not as a rule the
mistakes which the English think we have made, and I may add that they
are never mistakes which the anti-imperialists think we have made

3672 * TO CHARLES WILLIAM FULTON Roosevelt Ms$.

Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1905

My dear Senator Fulton: I have your letter of the 4th instant When I return
to Washington I shall take up the Judgesh p matter. I am sure you understand
that the situation in Oregon is such as to make it a very difficult matter for
me to follow the usual course. I have strong recommendations for McBride 1
On the other hand I have very strong protests against him from excellent men
who insist that he has been altogether too deeply mixed up with the men now
under indictment Of course the widespread nature of the conspiracies against
the government and the fact that they include so many of the very politicians
whom I under ordinary circumstances expect to recognize — that is, the men

1 Frank Athelstane Swettenham, The Real Malay (London, 1900)

Thomas Allen McBride, state circuit judge, Oregon, 1892-1909, Justice, Oregon

Supreme Court, 1909-1930 See Numbers 3673, 3733, 3734

who represent the dominant wing of the Republican party — have rendered
my position exceedingly difficult. Rightly or wrongly, the government agents
have felt that they had no support whatever, in their efforts to get at the
wrongdoing, from the men with whom Judge McBride is most intimately
associated. This is a matter which I must consider most carefully. Sincerely
yours

3673 • TO GEORGE EARLE CHAMBERLAIN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 12, 1905

My dear Governor : Your letter on the judgeship meant a great deal to me
and m response I am going to write you one which I must beg you to con-
sider as strictly confidential. I have been very greatly puzzled about this
judgeship. I had dismissed all thoughts of McBride for the place when a
lawyer, C E. S. Wood, whom I know personally but who has always been a
political opponent of mine and voted against me last year, wrote me a very
strong letter on McBride’s behalf, insisting that he was a most upright man
whom no corporation could influence for evil any more than a labor union
could influence him. As you know, I have as hearty contempt for the judge
who truckles to labor when labor does what is wrong as I have for the judge
who truckles to capital when capital does what is wrong. Now I am informed
confidentially that Wood is in with Senator Fulton in an improper irrigation
and land deal. Of course I know nothing whatever as to the truth of the story.
Can you tell me about Wood’s standing, purely confidentially? Can you also
tell me confidentially about McBride? I gather from your letter that you
greatly prefer Bean 1 to him and that is the way I am inclined myself — that
is, if I decide to appoint a Republican at all. Personally in the matter of a
judge I care very little about political nomenclature, for I regard the position
of judge as the most important of any to which I make appointments. I do
not exact anything like the high standard in the men whom I make internal
revenue collectors, postmasters, and the like, as I do in the men I make judges.
But of course it is very difficult, and indeed well-nigh impossible, to get a
man confirmed by the Senate if the Senators from his State are against him.

I have heard ugly rumors against Senator Fulton, but so far nothing more
than rumors. Can you confidentially give me any information about anyone
— Senator, Congressman, candidate for judge, public official of any kind or
private person — who has been connected with these land frauds and whose
connection you think I ought to know?

With great regard, Sincerely yours

Robert Sharp Bean, Justice, Oregon Supreme Court, 1890-1909, president, Board

of Regents, University of Oregon, 1899-1920; later United States district judge for

Oregon, 1 909-1 931.

3674 • TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 12, 1905

My dear Sir George: Well, the peace conference is over. I am of course very
glad I went into the thing, but it cost me a rather harassing although a very
interesting three months. I am bound to say that the Japs have impressed me
most favorably, not only during these three months but during the four years
I have been President. They have always told me the truth. They are a very
secretive people, and I speedily learned that I must never read into anything
they said one word more than was actually down in black and white; but so
far, whenever they have actually committed themselves I have been able to
count absolutely on their doing what they said they would. Moreover, they
know their own minds and all act together; whereas the Russians all pulled
against one another, rarely knew their own minds, lied so to others that they
finally got into the dangerous position of lying to themselves, and showed a
most unhealthy and widespread corruption and selfishness. I think Japan has
something within itself which will be good for civilization in general. If she
is treated fairly and yet not cringed to, I believe she will play her part hon-
orably and well in the world’s work of the Twentieth Century. Most cer-
tainly we have a good deal to learn from her; although we also have some-
thing to teach her, especially as to the proper treatment of women, which
seems to me to be the chief Japanese lack.

In these negotiations the Japanese made but one mistake. Their whole
demand for an indemnity was really a bluff. From the beginning I had told
them, and I told them even more emphatically at the end, that they could not
get one dollar unless Russia chose to give it in pure panic. But they were
trading on the chance of the existence of this panic, and so the Japanese gov-
ernment succeeded in raising the expectations of the people to a degree which
caused the bitterest disappointment in the end. This disappointment was not
warranted by the facts, for the Japanese retained literally everything they
had got hold of m Korea, in Manchuria and in Sakhalin, and have made
themselves a formidable naval power as an incident to the destruction of the
Russian navy.

I do most earnestly hope that Russia will now take some steps, no matter
how short, along the road of self-government and orderly liberty. I frankly
admire the Russian people and I wish them well. Moreover, I have never been
able to make myself afraid of them, because it has always seemed to me that
a despotism resting upon a corrupt and to a large extent an incapable bureauc-
racy could not in the long run be dangerous to a virile free people. The aver-
age man who speaks English can outwork, outadminister, outthink and out-
fight the average Russian; and this will be true until the average Russian
grows to have more liberty, more self-respect and more intelligence than at
present,

I suppose Witte is the best man that Russia could have at the head of her

affairs at present, and probably too good a man for the grand dukes to be
willing to stand him. He interested me. I cannot say that I liked him for I
thought his bragging and bluster not only foolish but shockingly vulgar when
compared with the gentlemanly self-respecting self-restraint of the Japanese.
Moreover, he struck me as a very selfish man, totally without high ideals. He
calmly mentioned to me, for instance, that it was Russia’s interest to keep
Turkey in power m the Balkan Peninsula; that he believed that Turkey
would last a long time, because it would be a very bad thing for Russia to
have the Bulgarians, for instance, substituted for the Turks, for the very
reason that they might give a wholesome, reputable government and thereby
build up a great Slav state to the south. He added cynically that such a con-
summation might be good for sentimental reasons, but that sentiment did not
count in practical politics. Inasmuch as I personally think that practical poli-
tics are a most sordid business unless they rest on a basis of honesty and dis-
interested sentiment (though of course I appreciate to the full that with this
disinterested sentiment there must also go intelligent self-interest) I could
not help feeling much contempt for the excellent Mr. Witte. I do not in the
least believe that it is necessary to be base or selfish in order to be efficient;
and to you, my dear Sir George, I can say without being suspected of spread-
eagleism that I can never sufficiently thank my good fortune in having the
lives and principles of Washington and Lincoln as the standard toward which
every American politician should struggle.

Witte is curiously frank and very emphatic in his statement of the need
of a thorough reform m Russia. He put it upon the perfectly simple ground
that in the Twentieth Century Russia could not hope to move forward to
the tremendous position which he firmly believed she would ultimately reach
unless she met Twentieth Century conditions. He spoke of having been m
Columbia University Library, where the librarian told him that all their books
by Russians were written by Russian anarchists. He said with a laugh that
they ought to offset them by all the government publications, and that if they
struck an exact middle between the two they would then be just right 1 He
spoke with utter impatience of the reactionaries in Russia, and m speaking of
Dosteffsky — if that is the way you spell his name, I mean the author of
Crime and Fumshment — he expressed the same horror for his having been
sent to Siberia that one of us would feel. I also sympathize with him in his
complaint about the hopeless nature of many of the Russian reformers,
headed by Tolstoy. These reformers, and pre-eminently Tolstoy, lack san-
ity, and it is very difficult to do decent reform work, or any other kind of
work, if for sanity we substitute a condition of mere morbid hysteria. Witte
also expressed his views about religious freedom and freedom of conscience
in a way that would command hearty support from you or me. I earnestly
hope to get a little alleviation of the condition of the Jews out of this peace
conference, as what you might call a by-product.

Last night I was reading the poems of William Morris. Of course they

are rather absurd and one gets tired of them very soon; but there are some
of them which have a kind of pre-Raphaehte attraction of their own. I also
happened to pick up the fifth volume of Lecky. It seems to me that in the
opening page he takes rather too sordid a view of the characteristics which
we have a right to expect of a modern statesman. It does not seem to me that
it is fair to say that passionate earnestness and self-devotion, delicacy of con-
science and lofty aim are likely to prove a hindrance instead of a help to a
statesman or a politician. Of course if the man possessing them has no balance
of common sense, then the man will go to pieces; but it will be because he is
a fool, not because he has some of the qualities of a moral hero. Undoubtedly
many great statesmen whose names are written in history in imperishable —
though personally I think in rather unpleasant — characters, have lacked
these characteristics; yet there are other great men who certainly have pos-
sessed them. But I suppose Lecky was thinking of the creatures analogous to
our mugwumps; the people who actually pride themselves on a fantastic and
visionary morality, utterly unbalanced by common sense, the people who
attracted the scorn of Macaulay’s eminently sane and healthy mind.

Your letter about John Hay interested me very much. I think he will be
missed more and more instead of less and less as time goes on by all who
knew him. I know that that will be true of me and of his successor, Root —
who, by the way, is the very man whom he would have liked to succeed him.

I am sorry there is no chance of your coming over here, for I do not
know when I can get to England. I had been hoping that after my term as
President was over Mrs. Roosevelt and I could go abroad, and of course we
may be able to; but we certainly cannot go if there is going to be any fuss
made over us and if we arc to be treated as public characters. In the first
place we could not afford it If we were allowed to travel quietly and in our
own way, just exactly like any other travelers, to sec the bloom of the haw-
thorn hedges, the cathedrals, the quiet old-world towns, the picture galleries
and palaces, the out-of-the-way nooks in the country, and not to see anyone
but an occasional person whom we would want to see whether I had been
President or not (for your misfortunes, I fear you would have to come
within this category), we could have a lovely time and I should like to go
completely around the world. But if I had to pay formal and official visits
and be entertained at big functions by the Kaiser, the Mikado and other
rulers, and if I had to be continually meeting people, it would m the first
place destroy all our pleasure on the trip, and in the next place it would
entail a way of living and of travel impossible for people of moderate means,
with half a dozen children who have reached the most expensive stage of
their education! Do you remember the picture in Punch, one of Leech’s
pictures, where the nervous rider, much afraid of his horse, says to the little
boy, “Don’t take off your hat, boy,” and the little boy responds, “I weren’t
going to”? Well, my alarm may be quite as unwarranted as that of Leech’s
rider, but unless I am sure that it is, I guess I shall have to stay in our own

country at least for three or four years, after which I shall be as unknown as
any human being could desire. Meanwhile, you can hardly imagine how
much I wish you could come over here and be our guest at the White House.
If you cannot come I shall hope to see one or more of your sons sometime
during the next three and a half years. Faithfully yours

3675 • TO RAY STANNARD BAKER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal and confidential Oyster Bay, September 13, 1905

My dear Mr. Baker: I haven’t a criticism to suggest about the article. 1 You
have given me two or three thoughts for my own message. It seems to me
that one of the lessons you teach is that these railroad men are not to be
treated as exceptional villains, but merely as ordinary Americans, who under
given conditions are by the mere force of events forced into doing much of
which we complain. I want so far as I can to free the movement for their
control from all rancor and hatred. Sincerely yours

3676 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 14, 190J

Dear Elihu: Kings and such-like are fundamentally just as funny as American
politicians. Odell’s anxiety that he and not Platt should receive the credit of
certain presidential appointments in New York is not a bit more amusing than
the attitude of the Czar about The Hague conference, as outlined in the fol-
lowing letter which was yesterday presented to me by Baron Rosen, who
came out here for that purpose*

In view of the termination, with the cordial co-operation of the President of
the United States, of the war and of the conclusion of peace between Russia and
Japan, His Majesty the Emperor, as initiator of the International Peace Conference
of 1899, holds that a favorable moment has now come for the further development
and for the systematizing of the labors of that International Conference. With this
end in view and being assured in advance of the sympathy of President Roosevelt
who has already last year pronounced himself in favor of such a project, H. M.
desires to approach him with a proposal to the effect that the Government of the
United States take part m a new International Conference which could be called
together at The Hague as soon as favorable replies could be secured from all the
other States to whom a similar proposal will be made. As the course of the late
war has given rise to a number of questions which are of the greatest importance
and closely related to the acts of the first Conference, the Plenipotentiaries of
Russia at the future meeting will lay before the Conference a detailed program
which could serve as a starting point for its deliberations.

1 Roosevelt had seen the proofs of the first article m Baker’s series, “Railroads on

Trial,” published m McClure’s, November 1 905-March 1906. Like the rest of this

series, the article was composed of equal parts of light and heat.

2 5

After he had read the letter Rosen began to hem and haw as to the steps
already taken by me a year ago, and about the fact that The Hague confer-
ence was the peculiar pet project of the Czar, I finally interrupted him and
said that I thought I understood what he wished, and that he could tell the
Czar at once that I was delighted to have him and not me undertake the
movement; that I should treat the movement as being made on his initiative,
and should heartily support it. This evidently relieved Rosen immensely. I
rather think that the Czar had felt from past experiences with the Kaiser that
there was a fair chance that I might endeavor to appear as the great originator
myself. As a matter of fact I am glad to be relieved from making the move on
my own initiative. I should have done it if no one else had done it because I
think it ought to be done; but I particularly do not want to appear as a
professional peace advocate — a kind of sublimated being of the Go d ki n or
Schurz variety — and it gives us a freer hand in every way to have the Czar
make the movement. For the last six months most of what I have done in con-
nection with foreign affairs, including the eastern war, Santo Domingo, Mo-
rocco, even Venezuela, not to speak of The Hague conference, has been on
an exclusively altiuistic basis; and I do not want people to get the idea that
I never consider American interests at all, or still worse, that I am posing as
never considering them. I told Rosen that 1 wished to wait until you could
frame a proper answer to the note, and that it might have to remain for a
week or two before you could do it. I shall send on for the papers to find out
the steps we took in The Hague matter a year ago, and will have them here
when you come out here on Wednesday night, the 20th.

I found that the Japanese were very anxious we should send the very high-
est man possible to Tokyo as Minister, and they say that if that is done they
will shortly make their representative here an Ambassador. They evidently
feel that if Choate were sent there it would be appreciated as an international
compliment. 1 do not know whether Choate would go or not. If I were in
his place I should be delighted to go. I have always felt that John Quincy
Adams rendered a real service when he went to Congress after being Presi-
dent; that is, he showed more regard for the work to be done than for the
titular position. In the same way Choate could well afford to spend what
would be a delightful couple of years m Tokyo for the sake of the good that
his going would do.

With warm regards to Mrs. Root, believe me, Faithfully yours

3677 • TO LESLIE MORTIER SHAW Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 15, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: The Germans are very anxious to have us send over
some man or men to find out if we can come to an agreement about tariff

matters. It ought to be done in October. Senator Aldrich thinks that it should
be done too, although he believes that the negotiations should proceed upon
the basis that our reduction of duties should be confined solely to those arti-
cles named in the third section of the act of 1897. I doubt whether we can
come to an agreement with Germany, but it seems to me it would be an
entirely courteous and proper act to send representatives over to see whether
it is possible to come to any agreement at all. I have written to Senator Allison
saying that I think this ought to be done but that I would like his views; and
I would also like yours. 1 Sincerely yours

3678 • TO LESLIE MORTIER SHAW Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 16, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: By all means take that week in Virginia.

I am rather uneasy as to certain political signs in Iowa, Massachusetts and
Ohio. 1 A defeat in those three States, or in any one of them, would be a
serious thing for us as a party. Of course this would really mean nothing
excepting in the impression that they would create, but the mere fact that
this impression was created would in itself mean a great deal — which seems
a paradox, but it is not. Thus, last year in five States which I carried, some
by very small and some by very big majorities, the Democrats elected the
Governor — Minnesota and Massachusetts being perhaps the two most re-
markable instances, although Missouri was almost as wonderful. But the peo-
ple will forget this and will in each case speak as if the faction fight meant
an attack upon the national policies of the party.

Appoint Burgess if you think it wise, subject to his getting Senator Allee’s
endorsement. 2 Also appoint Layton at the first opportunity, but be sure that
it does not in any way embarrass the Maryland campaign. 3 Sincerely yours

'The President sent similar letters to Senators Aldrich and Allison.

1 In Iowa and Massachusetts the Democrats were capitalizing on the persistent senti-
ment for tariff adjustment In Ohio they profited by the refusal of Foraker, Dick, and
Cox to support Roosevelt’s railroad program and by the renaissance of Tom John-
son’s popularity In all three states Republican factionalism was increasing, particu-
larly between the Cummins and Shaw groups m Iowa and the Foraker and Taft
groups in Ohio.

“On the recommendation of Senator Allee, and, at last, in opposition to Addicks,
Roosevelt appointed John W. Burgess of Delaware an appraiser in the New York
Customs House.

“Caleb R Layton, appointed auditor of the State Department, was, like Burgess,
recommended by Allee. Since Maryland and Delaware were considered together in
patronage allocations, Roosevelt was cautious about the Maryland reaction. There
the Democratic followers of Governor Warfield were fighting the Gormamtes for
control of the state. Roosevelt wanted to do nothing to disturb Warfield’s chances.

3679 ' TO ARCHIBALD J. SAMPSON

Personal

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, September 16, 1905

My dear Mr. Sampson : 1 1 have your letter of the 14th instant, enclosing your
resignation as Minister to Ecuador to take effect at the end of your present
leave of absence, and hereby accept it.

You make it very difficult for me to answer you when you write in effect
asking me to give you the reasons which influenced me to request your resig-
nation; but you leave me no alternative save to state them. Last spring I
heard in an indirect way that while you were a man of unquestioned integ-
rity, you were an inefficient Minister at Quito. I made certain inquiries this
summer from men acquainted with the situation in whose judgment I had a
right to trust, and became convinced that the statement was true. This is
not a pleasant thing for me to say, and a still less pleasant thing for you to
hear, and I hoped I would not have to say it But I think that the efficiency
of the diplomatic service will be increased by a change at Quito. I would
much rather that you had been content to tender your resignation without
it being necessary to state why it was asked.

I have no question but there are other positions in which you would do
good work, but you must surely know that such a position as that you men-
tion, with a salary of from three to five thousand dollars, in Washington, is
the kind of position in which a vacancy rarely occurs. I know of no prospec-
tive vacancy in such a position. I do not like to interfere with Mr. Shonts in
the matter of appointments for Isthmian Canal work. I would suggest that
you go to him direct and explain just what it is you think yourself competent
to do, and sec whether an opening such as you desire exists or is likely to
exist. I will gladly bear testimony to your reputation for integrity and good
citizenship, and I should be glad if the chance came to appoint you to a posi-
tion where you could do good work. Sincerely yours

3680 • TO WILLIAM S. HARVEY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal. Not for publication Oyster Bay, September 16, 1905

My dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the 14th instant. As I am sure
you will realize on thinking it over, it is out of the question for the President
to join in any such call. You can rely, however, upon my doing whatever is
in my power to further your end. Of course the action should be taken by
the State of New Hampshire, following, for instance, the action of New
York in creating the Adirondack Forest Reserve. I should think it very
doubtful whether the National Government would be able to purchase any
such reserve, at least at this time. I should much prefer, naturally, to have

1 Archibald J. Sampson, Arizona Republican, G A.R. officer, attorney general of
Colorado, 187(5-1879; consul at El Paso, Mexico, 1889-1893; from 1897, minister to
Ecuador.

the National Government control the reserve, if ive could afford to pay for
it — just as I should like to see the Government purchase and control the
proposed great South Appalachian preserve; but there are very grave prac-
tical difficulties in the way; it would be hard to know where to stop. 1 Sin-
cerely yours

3681 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Personal and confidential Oyster Bay, September 16, 1905

My dear Mr. Ambassador: I am in receipt of your two letters of the 2d and
5th of September. The English had given me the abstract of the treaty some
weeks ago and I received the text of it both from them and from the Jap-
anese just before the signing of the peace. 1 1 am inclined to think that Munro
Ferguson’s suggestion as to how you should make what communications we
have to make is an excellent one. I think the hitch has been, just as you say,
from the lack of a certain flexibility of mind both in Lansdowne and Durand.
It really bothers me but very little, because if I deem it necessary I speak to
them with the greatest plainness as to what I think ought to be done, and I
tell them with minute circumstantiality just what I can do in return.

I was interested in the clippings you sent me about that Hankow railway.
They are not entirely fair to our people. The original American management
is to be condemned because it finally did permit the road to be absorbed by
the Belgians; but under the management of Pierpont Morgan enough stock
was purchased to give the Americans control. The Chinese behaved in their
usual manner, the local viceroy insisting that the Americans must sell, while
the central government made tearful complaints about the Americans trying
to extort so much money from them. I found out that one amount specified
had been offered by the Chinese Minister himself and was only accepted by
the Americans on the Chinese Minister’s statement that the concession had
already been revoked. The people representing the American stockholders
told me that they would be glad to go on with the work, would guarantee
that it should be done purely by Americans, and that they would agree to
any alterations in the concession which the Chinese and American govem-

1 Government purchase of eastern forest reserves was first suggested in 1892 by
Joseph A. Holmes, state geologist of North Carolina Roosevelt, in 1901 and again in
1906, supported the proposal m his annual message. The Appalachian and White
Mountain forest lands, however, were not purchased until the passage of the Weeks
Act in 1911.

1 Under the provisions of the second Anglo-Japanese alliance of August 1905, Great
Britain agreed to recognize Japanese interests in Korea in return for Japanese recog-
nition of England’s “special interests” in India and Tibet. Both signatories further
agreed to mutual assistance if these treaty interests were threatened by a third

? ower. Although Roosevelt was constantly annoyed by British unwillingness to press
apan for modified peace terms during the war, he was m favor of the alliance See
Dennis, Adventures in American Diplomacy, pp 413, 416-417, No. 3710, Griswold,
Far Eastern Policy, pp. 114-116.

ments thought necessary; but the Chinese government then executed a volte
face and announced that they stood by the local viceroy; that the concession
had been revoked and that they were willing and anxious to pay the sum of
money they had offered. I told Pierpont Morgan that if he and his friends
chose to stand by their rights I would put the power of the government be-
hind them, so far as the executive was concerned, in every shape and way.
But they felt that if the Chinese government stood firm the most they could
expect would be damages for the loss of their contract, and that the payment
already offered was in the nature of damages, and that they did not care to
go into a wrangle in the matter. Strictly between you and me, if I had been
in closer touch with the workings of the State Department than was the case
until I had been some years in office, I should have taken drastic action long
ago, both against the American members of this corporation who had sold out
to the Belgians, and against the Chinese government, and I am sure I could
have put the thing through. This is of course for you personally alone, and
I say it simply because it is essential that you should know in your present
position exactly what my relations are to China, as well as to other powers.
Sincerely yours

3682 • to cari, schurz Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 18, 1905

My dear Mr. Schurz: I am in receipt of your letter of the 14th instant. I think
that the question of disarmament is one that I can legitimately request The
Hague Conference to consider, and unless there is very good reason to the
contrary, which I cannot now see, I shall do so.

But there has been a comic development in the case of that Hague Con-
ference which I think in view of your letter I ought to communicate to you,
but which I must ask you for the present to keep confidential. The other day
Baron Rosen came to see me with a message from the Czar, announcing m
effect that he intended at once to call The Hague Conference and was sure
I would co-operate with him! The good Baron was a little embarrassed when
he presented the paper and beat about the bush for some minutes, so that I
finally interrupted him and said that we might as well speak frankly and that
I supposed this meant that the Czar wished to appear as taking the initiative
in the matter. The Baron looked very much relieved and said “Yes, this was
exactly what he meant.” I told him that I was delighted; that I had not the
slightest wish to take the initiative, but I did very much wish that the con-
ference should be called; and that I should back the Czar up in every way in
trying to secure it. There is of course an element of pure comedy about the
Czar’s action. In the first place, as you probably recollect, last year I invited
all the nations to take part in a second conference and received from all of
them acceptances, though in half the cases the acceptances were conditioned
upon its not taking effect until the Russian-Japanese war had ended. Hay

felt that this was all we could do, and that as provided in the first Hague
agreement the council at The Hague should now take the initiative about
the conference. On thinking it over I became convinced that the council
never would act and that I should have to jog the memory of the nations
whom I had addressed. Of course I am delighted to have the Czar jog them
instead, for his action will undoubtedly have a greater effect upon Germany
and France than mine would, and I shall back him up in every way. But isn’t
it funny that a great ruler, or, for the matter of that, a grown man, should
under these circumstances want solemnly to make believe that he is himself
calling the conference? However, the important point is that it should be
called, and his attitude is a matter merely for good-humored amusement
among ourselves. In the second place there is a rather grim irony in the Czar,
whose government was really responsible for the devastating war which has
occurred since the last Hague Conference, and whose country is now in the
throes of what we hope will not be a social or political revolution but what
undoubtedly ought to be an enormous social and political change in the di-
rection of freedom — that this man should now take the lead in a proposition
looking toward world peace. But mankind at large does not have a very
strong sense of humor, and it will probably be but little affected by these
considerations. On the other hand it would be very much affected by any-
thing looking like a squabble between myself and the Czar as to who should
have the credit of calling the conference, and in my judgment there could
be no justification for my answering Rosen otherwise than as I did; that is,
telling him that I should be delighted that the Czar should have the credit of
taking the initiative and that I should heartily support him. Moreover, it may
well be that if I had done as I otherwise should have done and started to get
the conference together myself, I would have aroused many jealousies for
the very reason that I have been instrumental in bringing about peace be-
tween Russia and Japan, and that there would be a feeling that I was posing
too much as a professional peacemaker. So I think it is all right from every
standpoint. Sincerely yours

3683 • TO LESLIE MORTIER SHAW Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 18, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: I think your letter could be summed up in the phrase
“No humbug,” and it makes a mighty good platform. Now would it do
simply to send to Germany some man whom we can trust — a thoroughly
good man who on the one hand will honestly and tactfully do his best to
prevent any break with Germany, and on the other hand will not give away
our case 3 This man could be sent primarily to look fully into the matter and
report to us. If he found that he could get an agreement by which we could
stand, he could undoubtedly advise us so fully by cable that we could
authorize him to go ahead with it. I am very much puzzled. I do not want a

tariff war at this time, and I want to keep our relations with Germany
friendly. I wish to Heaven we could persuade Germany to keep up the
status quo , but if she won’t do it I want to be able to show clearly that we
are not to blame and that we have made every legitimate effort to avoid
trouble. I do not want to say that under no circumstances would I ever again
send a reciprocity treaty to the Senate; but I am perfectly willing to say to
you privately that in view of my past experiences, it will have to be a very
urgent case and I shall have to be awfully sure of my ground before I would
even dream of such a thing, and I see no prospect whatever of these condi-
tions being met either as regards Germany or any other country.

I have written to Cannon, Payne and Dalzell, as you suggest, and asked
them also to recommend to me the man they think most suitable to send to
Germany. Will you also give me your views as to who this man should be?
Sincerely yours

3684 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 19, 1905

My dear Mr. Ambassador: I have thought over very carefully what you said
about communicating with the King. On occasions I think it would be well
for you incidentally to speak to him, but I think you had better be very
cautious about spealdng to him in any official way. You doubtless remember
the stinging letter Palmerston sent to the Queen when through the Prince
Consort she communicated with the German Government. I think we can
get along pretty easily by communicating with the Prime Minister or Foreign
Office, and I do not attach much importance to their plea that they speak
for the government whereas I can only speak for the government with the
proviso that the Senate does not disagree with me. In actually working out
matters during the past two years, I have been able to speak with much more
boldness and decision than either Balfour or Lansdownc.

I wish that the English and the German governments did not reciprocally
feel such wild manias of hatred and distrust for one another. Each side busily
accuses the other of every kind of dark and sinister design, and in some cases
at least I know that each side is hopelessly and foolishly wrong. I do not
suppose there is anything that I can do to try to bring about a better feeling
between England and Germany. If the chance comes to you in any way to
help bring about such a feeling, I know you will do it, and I wish that when
it comes naturally you would say a word to the German Ambassador in Lon-
don to show that you are entirely friendly to Germany, and that whenever
it is possible for you to say or do something to make the relations between
England and Germany better, to the advantage of both peoples, you will say
it or do it. All of this will require great tact, and I can only make the sugges-
tion in a general way. Sincerely yours

3685 • TO WILLIAM L RIORDON

Personal

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, September 19, 1905

My dear Mr. Riordon: 1 I cannot write you for publication, but I must tell
you privately how I have enjoyed your book. If it can only be studied at
good government clubs and in colleges, and if only the students would under-
stand that the views are not those of an exceptional but of a typical politician
of a very common type, representing an immense mass of people, I think it
will save reformers from the effect of some mischievous delusions!

If you ever come on to Washington you must be sure to let me have the
chance of seeing you. Sincerely yours

3686 • TO HERMANN SPECK VON STERNBERG Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 23, 1905

Dear Speck: I have been doing my best in the tariff matter, but it has been
the most difficult work imaginable to make progress. You know our system
of government, and you know that Congress is peculiarly jealous of its
revenue functions and is very unapt to tolerate what it regards as encroach-
ment of any kind in this matter from the Executive. It would be mere folly
for me to send anyone to Germany or undertake any negotiations unless I
have strong backing in the two Houses. Hitherto I have been entirely unable
to get any direct or unqualified assent from the leaders of Congress to my
proposal to send a commission to Berlin. The Senators do not believe that a
reciprocity treaty could be passed through the Senate. I earnestly wish that
there were some way of keeping the status quo. What I shall have to do is to
try to get some of the House and Senate leaders to meet me and one another
at Washington early in October, when the fiscal situation is a little clearer and
the meeting of Congress nearer, and then to make our Ambassador, Tower,
the intermediary. I doubt if I am able to get Congress to do more. It is a very
unfortunate thing that it becomes necessary to disturb the matter at all. But
of course all I can do I will do.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

With great regard. Sincerely yours

3687 • TO ISAAC WAYNE MAC VEAGH Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 23, 1905

My dear Mr. MacVeagh: I really liked your letter. It seems to me that you
are right and that there is nothing whatever for me to say at the moment. It
is a bubble that will go downstream as so many other bubbles have gone. Of
course I knew nothing whatever of the contribution in question, but John

1 William L Riordon, New York Evening Post reporter, had recently published his
engaging and often discerning Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.

McCall has never directly or indirectly asked me to do anything for him and *
has been a good friend to me; so far as I can see, from entirely disinterested
motives. As for poor Perlans, the only thing I did that affected him, as far
as I know, was ray bringing the Northern Securities suit, which affected him
adversely. 1 1 understand the beef trust people have been complaining bitterly
because, although they contributed to the Republican campaign fund, I have
had the suits carried on against them. So when I was Governor Mr. Whitney
complained bitterly that, although he contributed to my campaign fund (and
Van Wyck’s too) yet that I put through the franchise tax bill. In each case
I can only answer that if any man contributed to my election with the belief
that such contribution would influence my official action he utterly misread
me, and that if I had known of his contribution and the motive behind it I
would certainly have had it refused. In Whitney’s case, if I had known that a
contribution also went to Van Wyck, I should have had it refused anyhow.
This statement about Whitney is confidential. I of course have no proof of it,
but it was alleged to me by the Republican organization as a reason why I
should reverse my action in signing the franchise tax bill.

Of course the same reasons that would influence the return of the con-
tributions in my case would apply to returning them in the cases of McKinley
and Cleveland, and incidentally also in the cases of Bryan, Parker and Harri-
son. Moreover, I could only return them on the grounds that I thought the
motives of those contributing to be bad. It would be a very difficult thing to
make such an assertion, especially when, as in the case of McCall and Perkins,

I did not for a moment believe that their motives were other than good. It
would also be a very difficult thing to know where to draw the line in the
matter of amounts. I think, although I have no means of knowing, that Frick
probably contributed moic heavily to my campaign fund than anyone else
did, and Frick has never asked me for a favor of any kind, sort or description,
though I offered him one of the most responsible positions in my gift, namely,
the head of the Panama Commission. He was unable to take it. I think that
his contribution was due solely to two reasons; m the first place his very real
conviction that the success of the Republican party was essential to the
welfare of the country, and in the second place Ins personal feeling for me.

I am worried by what you say about insurance matters. I have always felt
that the insurance corporations, and indeed all of these corporations, should
be under Federal supervision. I am by no means sure that the Federal super-
vision will be up to the Massachusetts standards but I hardly see any way out
of it. I shall take the liberty of sending to you for the purpose of comment

‘ George W. Perkrns and John A. McCall, president of the New York Life Insurance
Company, had told a congressional investigating committee of their large contribu-
tions to the Republican campaign fund in 1904 Their testimony ignited Steffens
and others who called for the return of all contributions from the business interests
Roosevelt brushed this suggestion aside (see also No 3690). In time Steffens’ un-
realistic demand was supplanted by increasing public support for legislation for-
bidding contributions by corporations to party funds.

and suggestion the part of my message dealing with this whole corporation
business. Sincerely yours

3688 • TO FLORENCE LOCKWOOD LA FARGE RoOSevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 25, 1905

Dear Florence: I will take up the Rush matter at once. I have thoroughly
enjoyed Sutherland’s Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct , 1 and am
grateful to you for calling my attention to it.

It was delightful catching the glimpse I did of you and Grant. Faithfully
yours

[Handwritten] Sutherland is of course all wrong as to the practical effect
of some of his theories. What he says about the reduced birthrate receives a
grim commentary in the stationary population of his own country, Australia.
The Roman Empire fell because of 1) decline in population 2) decline in
military spirit All other causes were merely accessory

3689 • TO RICHARD BARTHOLDT RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 25, 1905

My dear Mr. Bartholdt: Will you give me a draft of what you think I ought
to say in my message about The Hague Conference? 1 Please send it to me as
soon as possible.

About the navy, my view is pretty moderate. I think we ought to replace
worn-out units, or obsolete units, by thoroughly efficient ones, but I do not
think we now need any increase in the total number of units in our navy.
This will mean that ultimately we shall have thirty first-class battleships and
fifteen or twenty armored cruisers. This I think is all that we need, at any
rate for the future which is at all clearly within our ken, so I think without
exposing ourselves to even the appearance of inconsistency we shall now be in
shape to ask for the stoppage of the increase of armament. Of course all the
armament we do have should be the most efficient in the world. It would be
criminal to «scant» our navy.

I hope to hear from you at once. Sincerely yours

3690 • TO JOSEPH LINCOLN STEFFENS RoOSevelt MsS.

Personal and confidential Oyster Bay, September 25, 1903

My dear Steffens: In your letter you say that the papers report me as wishing
that I “could give back the money contributed to the Republican campaign
fund by the insurance and other corporations seeking national legislation.”

1 The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct (London, 1898), by Alexander
Sutherland, Australian poet and historian

1 See Roosevelt, State Papers, Nat. Ed. XV, 295-300.

The report is absolutely erroneous. I have never said anything of the kind
and never thought anything of the kind. You also advise me to pay back the
money by asking contributions from “the people who didn’t want anything
out of the government except general laws and an administration of justice
and fair play,” and suggest that I should return the money given by “the
men who wanted special legislation,” and to say that I would like to have it
made up by those who asked no favors. In such case you offer to contribute
one or five dollars, and you add that if I did what you suggest I “would make
the millions feel that it is their government," and that I and my “administration
were beholden to the many and not the few.” Most emphatically at the
present time I feel beholden to the many more than to the few; and I feel
beholden both to the many and to the few only in the sense that it is my duty
to do my level best both for the many and for the few. I shall certainly not
sacrifice the interests of the many to the few; and on the other hand, no
matter how few any group of persons may be I shall studiously protect these
few people from wrongdoing from the multitude. Do you not heartily ap-
prove of both of these positions 9

You wish me to search the hidden domain of motive as regards each con-
tributor. I do not suppose you draw the line at the amount contributed.
Indeed, it would be impossible to draw such a line. Last year there were
thousands of people who contributed one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars,
twenty-five dollars or fifty dollars to my campaign fund — not officeholders
at all, but plain people of small means. Scores of such subscriptions came to
Mr. Loeb and some to me personally. These were the only subscriptions of
which I had any personal knowledge, or could have .any such knowledge. I
know, however from hearing, that when I ran for Governor several friends
of mine or believers in me gave sums of from five hundred to two thousand
dollars, and a close friend, a kinsman, when I ran for President subscribed ten
thousand dollars; while I believe, although I do not know, that a very wealthy
man whom I do not know very well but whom I heartily respect and who
for some reason admires me, gave over fifty thousand dollars. In all these
cases the contributors had no earthly interest, whether they contributed
much or contributed little, except in seeing “good laws and an administration
of justice and fair play.” I would certainly not know where to draw the
line in receiving their contributions. I think that some of the men who con-
tributed five dollars to me contributed, relatively to their fortunes, just as
much as the men who contributed most to me. I suppose I can discard the
idea that you would have me draw the line at any specific amount in contri-
butions.

We therefore come to the question of motive. You say that you would
advise my returning the money “given by men who wanted special legisla-
tion,” and you speak of the insurance and other corporations who contributed
“because they wished national legislation.” I do not know of a single corpora-
tion which contributed last year and which now desires legislation, and I do

know that some of those who contributed heavily, or at least whose officers
contributed heavily, object very much to the legislation I have been endeavor-
ing to secure. Most certainly, if at the time I had had any information that any
man or corporation contributed because they wanted special legislation, or
wanted executive or legislative favors of any kind, I should have directed that
corporation’s money to be returned. But when the money has been received
and spent it is out of the question to return it. For instance, I am informed that
certain corporations which I am having prosecuted for violation of the law
complain that they are being prosecuted and that this is very unjust in view of
the fact that they contributed to my campaign fund. I did not know that they
had contributed. But if they contributed under the impression that thereby
they would secure any improper favor, or immunity for wrongdoing, all I
can say is that they entirely misread me, and if I had known what their
motives were and that they had contributed I should have had their con-
tributions returned. But inasmuch as this is impossible, it is nonsense for me
to express any regret, for the fault is purely theirs and not mine. Excepting
this hearsay statement as to certain corporations (which, as a matter of fact,
have not been mentioned so far as I know in the press as having contributed
to me) I have no information whatever of any man or corporation having
contributed for the purpose of obtaining special legislation. For instance, take
the case of two men whose testimony has caused all the present talk — Messrs.
McCall and Perkins. I knew these two men were supporting me and rather
took it for granted that they had contributed to the campaign fund, although
I did not know the amount and had no idea that they had contributed as
officers of a corporation, and not in their individual capacity. But they
certainly do not want national legislation. Mr. McCall has never directly or
indirectly, so far as I know, asked or accepted anything out of me in any
shape or way, and does not desire anything now, while on the only occasion
when I took any action that affected Mr. Perkins’ interests the action affected
him adversely m the shape of the Northern Securities suit. As yet there has
not been a suggestion to me, excepting as above mentioned, that any corpora-
tion contributed for improper purposes. Still less has there been a suggestion
that any corporation or individual was approached in an improper way by
any man connected with my campaign. I know that Mr. Cortelyou informed
me just before the close of the campaign and again just after it was over that
I could feel absolute certainty as to his actions, and that no man having any
authority to speak for me had committed me in any shape or way to do more
than fair and square justice to every interest and every individual. I should
suppose that you would know that if any fool or scoundrel made any promise
on my behalf they would be made without my authority; and that no one,
not even a scoundrel unless he was also a fool, would believe that there was
any authority lying behind such a promise. Ten months have passed since my
election. You surely must know that during that time we have gone ahead
without deviating a hair’s breadth from the line of policy marked out by me

during the six preceding years while I was Governor and President. As a
matter of fact, of the people who contributed to my campaign fund, so far
as I know, but four have made any kind of a request for favors from me.
Three of them were requests for signed photographs, which I granted. At
the same time I granted hundreds of similar requests to people who had not
contributed. The fourth was a request which I could not grant, and those
making it did not put it upon the ground that they had contributed to the
campaign fund.

In short, my dear Steffens, I think that if you will reflect a little you will
come to the conclusion that in the first place your premises are wrong, and
that in the next place for me to follow such a line as you indicate would be
simply silly. Last year I urged upon Congress the need for providing for the
publicity of contributions and expenditures by both national parties. Whether
corporations should be permitted to contribute or not is doubtful. They al-
ways have been allowed to contribute, sometimes to one fund and sometimes
to another, often by the authority of the stockholders. If the stockholders do
not give the authority to the officers to contribute, the latter should be held
responsible, for those who receive the contributions cannot possibly know
that they did not have such authority.

When the money has once been expended it is nonsense to speak of the
people being reimbursed. Last year, as I happen to know personally, we
refused several big contributions because they were offered by corporations
concerning which the government was about to take some action — a case in
point being Mr. Cortelyou’s refusal to receive any money from either the
Tobacco Trust or independent tobacco people, in view of my having at that
time to decide the tobacco stamp controversy. But ever since I was a boy
campaigns have had to be managed by the considerable expenditure of
money. My campaign cost a good deal of money It did not cost as much as
either of McKinley’s, or as Cleveland’s ’92 campaign. I doubt if it cost more
than Parker’s, but it probably cost more than Bryan’s or than Harrison’s ’92
campaign. That an occasional man contributed for an improper motive, that
some of the money was improperly used, is doubtless true as regards the cam-
paign of every candidate who was up for the Presidency in any election. My
belief was that no campaign was managed on a cleaner basis than my cam-
paign was last year; that in no campaign was the money expended in a
cleaner fashion than by the Republican campaign committee of which Mr.
Cortelyou was chairman and Mr. Cornelius Bliss treasurer; and that in no
campaign was there less pressure of any kind, direct or indirect, to secure
contributions from any source, and that in no campaign were the contribu-
tions given with less expectation of receiving any favor whatever in return,
whether by special legislation or otherwise. I think that an immense propor-
tion of whatever was given, was given simply with the idea that I and the
forces I represented stood for the good of the country, that I would give
a square deal to every man, that I would protect the poor man in his rights

and the man of means in his (and do not forget that the protection is as much
needed for the latter as for the former); and that in short it was to the
interest of the country, and therefore to the interest of both the man of large
means and the man of small means that I should be continued as President.
Yours truly

[. Handwritten ] P.S Remember that the wrong lies not m receiving the
contribution, large or small, but m exercising, directly or indirectly, any
improper pressure to get it, or in making an promise, express or implied, as to
any consideration being given for it, by the action or inaction of any govern-
ment official

3691 • TO GEORGE HERBERT LOCKE Roosevelt MsS .

Private Oyster Bay, September 27, 1905

My dear Sir : 1 What I am about to say to you I wish to have treated as for
private use only (for yourself and Mr. Long) and not in any way for publi-
cation, for I of course could not go into any public discussion.

I thank you for Mr. Long’s book. 2 I enjoyed it and am reading it to the
children; but I have told them that it is to be judged just as we judge Kip-
ling’s Jungle Books , and I regret that it is not explicitly stated that it is of
this order, although of course with a generally closer fidelity to fact than was
possible for Kiplmg under his scheme. Take the first, and to my mind the
most interesting story — that of the great white wolf. There is much in this
that is undoubtedly true, just as in the Song of Roland there is much light
cast on the history of the times of Charlemagne and of the times immediately
succeeding. But there are many statements which, if true, are so new and seem
so improbable that they should under no circumstances be set forth as ac-
curate (or, as the preface claims, “every incident being minutely true to
fact”) without the most careful and detailed setting forth of all the authorities
for them and of exactly what was observed in each case, exactly by whom
and when and where There are other statements made in the story which
from my own knowledge of animals I am confident are utterly inaccurate.
To anyone who knows the relative prowess of a single big wolf and of a lynx,
or has seen the ease with which a good fighting dog who knows his business
will kill a lynx without himself getting harmed, the whole account of the
way two wolves kill a lynx is absurd. Then again, take the account of the
killing of the caribou by the white wolf, by a “quick snap where the heart
lay.” This whole account is full of inaccuracies which it is hard to understand
in any observer who knows anything about wolves or deer. For instance,

1 George Herbert Locke, member of the editorial department of Ginn and Company,
Boston, 1905-1907 He later became an acting professor of education at McGill
University, 1907-1908, and chief librarian of the city of Toronto, 1908-1937. In
1926 he was elected president of the American Library Association

2 William Joseph Long, Northern Trails; Some Studies of Animal Life m the Far
North (Boston, 1905)

after the above injury had been given, Mr. Long describes the big wolf as
“holding himself, with tremendous will power, from rushing in headlong,
from driving the game, which might run for miles if hard pressed.” Now
this is sheer nonsense and must come from a complete misunderstanding of
how game acts when hurt. A gut-shot or broken-legged caribou will, if hard
pressed, go for miles; whereas if not hard pressed it will lie down and the
wound stiffen, and it can more easily be approached. But if an animal is hurt
in the heart or around the heart, as here described, it makes not the slightest
difference whether it is hard pressed or not, any more than it would make if
it were hurt in the brain or spine. Such a heart-struck animal will usually
make a short, rapid dash, but it is a physical impossibility for it to continue
that dash. Whether the wolf had followed it close up or far off would not
make twenty yards difference in its run. Personally I greatly doubt the
wolf’s holding himself in at all under such circumstances, or at least from any
such motive as is alleged. But this is not all. If the place of attack on the
deer specified by Mr. Long is ever chosen by a wolf, it must be very, very
rarely. Mr. Long describes in detail two caribou being killed; and in one case
he states that one quick snap of the old wolf’s teeth just behind the forelegs
“pierced the heart more surely than a hunter’s bullet”; exact words used in
describing the death of the other caribou I have already quoted. Now not
only is this not the usual way in which a wolf kills, but it is so very unusual
that I am tempted to doubt if it is a normal way at all, it certainly cannot
happen normally as described. Of course, in a sudden scurry of confusion a
wolf might seize anywhere; but in the scores and perhaps hundreds of kills
by wolves which I have examined — kills of deer, sheep, and young and old
cattle — I have never known of one instance in which the heart was the point
of the wolfs attack. A moment’s reflection will show anyone how unlikely it
is that the heart should be so attacked. In a fawn it might occur, under
altogether exceptional circumstances, but in a bull caribou I am inclined to
think it a physical impossibility. The heart is protected by the ribs, and the
wolf’s jaws simply could not bite through the ribs into the heart from the
side. The gape of a wolf’s jaw would not permit this. Apparently Mr. Long
means that the wolf bites through from underneath the caribou, taking the
whole caribou’s chest into his mouth, the dogteeth being supposed to pierce
the heart. Now the attitude necessary to make such a bite would be a very
unhandy one, and in the case of the full grown caribou a very dangerous one,
for the wolf. It is possible, although most unprobable, that under exceptional
. circumstances a wolf might kill a fawn m this very clumsy way, but I am
inclined to think that with an old caribou it would be a physical impossibility.
If a caribou were standing or running the wolf would have to turn almost
upside down, like a shark, in order to deliver such a bite. Wolves normally
kill any large animal by biting at the flanks or haunches. Occasionally, but
much more rarely, they seize by the throat. I have known them m the hurly-
burly of the fight to seize in many different ways, but never under any cir-

cumstances have I known them to seize in the way described by Mr. Long.
It cannot possibly be their regular method of seizure, and if it is ever resorted
to it must be under such extraordinary circumstances, and in itself it is so
extraordinary m nature, that the most minute account of exactly what was
done should be given in order that the matter may be authenticated.

I have mentioned offhand a couple of things as I think they would strike
any observing hunter who read the book. I could mention scores of others,
but it is of course not worth while. I speak of these at all only to emphasize
my regret that the book was not put out frankly as an animal romance,
founded on fact but not professing to come too close to the facts — such a
book as London’s Call of the Wild or Kipling’s Jungle Books. Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] Let me mention one more typical inaccuracy. The last
anecdote in the account of the big wolf, the story of it’s acting as the friendly
and super-humanly intelligent guide of the children, is of course pure fable.
It ranks with the adventures of Mowgli with Kaa and Bagheera. I am using
very mild language when I say that it is a mistake for Mr. Long to «assert»
of such fables that “every incident is minutely true to fact.”

3692 • TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 27, 1905

My dear Senator Allison: The German Government has been most insistent
upon having the negotiations take place in Berhn. I have conferred with you
and Aldrich, Shaw, Cannon and Dalzell m the matter, and I have not been
able to obtain any such consensus of opinion as would warrant me in taking
any action save to put the matter m the hands of Ambassador Tower and ask
him to find out just what the situation is. I think Shaw’s view is extreme, and
much prefer your view. I would like to have you come on to Washington,
consult with me, and draw up a full set of instructions to Tower, but I do
not want to bother you to take the long trip. May I ask therefore that you
draw up a full set of instructions, embodying them in a letter to me which I
can send to Tower after showing it to Shaw, and then tell Tower to get the
views of the German Government exactly and to report at once back, if
necessary by cable 5 This will give us a chance to begin matters at any rate.
If it does not bother you I should like to have the letter as quickly as possible.
I write to you rather than to Aldrich, Shaw, Cannon or Dalzell because your
last letter put the thing in such clear fashion.

With high regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] Conger 1 would be a good man if he knows what we
<c.want»\

1 Edwin Hurd Conger, Republican congressman from Iowa, 1885-1890; minister
to Brazil, 1890-1893, minister to China, 1898 — March 1905, minister to Mexico,
March — October 1905.

3693 ■ T 0 CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT

Personal

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, September 29, 1905

My dear President Eliot. I have been really concerned by the reported out-
rageous conduct of the newspapers in reference to Ted. I care less than
nothing about what they do or say about me, for I am entirely competent to
defend myself and I am past the stage where they can do me any material
damage; but it is perfectly possible for them to create in the minds of Ted’s
fellow college boys an opinion about Ted which will go far toward seriously
interfering with the enjoyment and the profit of his college career. They
published the statement that he had a room in Claverly, thereby giving the
impression that he had begun with a splurge. The room is a small one, for
which he pays $150, less than I paid for my own when I was m college. I
have given him an allowance of $1200. The boy is an ordinary boy, who
I believe will study well, who is fond of sports but not especially proficient
in them. In addition to the unspeakable vulgarity of the references of the
papers to him before he got to Harvard, I see that with a spirit of even
grosser offense against good taste, in utter heedlessness of the possible lasting
damage they could do him, they have been trying to take kodak pictures of
him as he walked about the yard, and I suppose they will make similar at-
tempts if he goes on the football field. I am inclined to tell him, if he sees any
man taking a photograph of him, to run up and smash the camera, but I do
not like to do this if you would disapprove. Is there no way he can be pro-
tected 5 I do not suppose you could interfere; I don’t even suppose it would
be possible to tell one or two of the influential college men to put an instant
stop to the cameras, and to the newspapermen running around after Ted.
I suppose there would not be the slightest use in my writing to the papers.
It would only accentuate things.

I must apologize for bothering you about what must seem to you an
insignificant matter; but this crass, hideous vulgarity is not merely extremely
distasteful, but may have a very damaging effect upon poor Ted, at least in
his relation to the other boys, and in the very improbable event of your
having any advice to give, I should be glad to get it.

With high regard, Sincerely yours

3694 • TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, October 2, 1905

Blessed old T ed: You have been having an infernal time through these cursed
newspapers. I was so indignant that I wrote to President Eliot about it, and
I felt positively warlike. I have been talking it over with Gifford Pinchot and
some other college fellows, and we are all agreed that it is just one of the
occasions where the big bear cannot help the small bear at all, though he
sympathizes awfully with him. The thing to do is to go on just as you have

evidently been doing, attract as little attention as possible, do not make a fuss
about the newspapermen, camera creatures, and idiots generally, letting it be
seen that you do not like them and avoid them, but not letting them betray
you into any excessive irritation. I believe they will soon drop you, and it is
just an unpleasant thing that you will have to live down. Ted, I have had an
enormous number of unpleasant things that I have had to live down in my
life at different times, and you have begun to have them now. I saw that you
were not out on the football field on Saturday and was rather glad of it, as
evidently these infernal idiots were eagerly waiting for you; but whenever
you do go you will have to make up your mind that they will make it exceed-
ingly unpleasant for you for once or twice, and you will just have to bear it;
for you can never in the world afford to let them drive you away from any-
thing you intend to do, whether it is football or anything else, and by going
about your own business quietly and pleasantly, doing just what you would
do if they were not there, gradually they will get tired of it, and the boys
themselves will see that it is not your fault and will feel, if anything, rather
a sympathy for you. Meanwhile I want you to know that we are all thinking
of you and sympathizing with you the whole time; and it is a great comfort
to me to have such confidence in you and to know that though these
creatures can cause you a little trouble and make you feel a little downcast,
they cannot drive you one way or the other, or make you alter the course
you have set out for yourself.

We were all of us, I am almost ashamed to say, rather blue at getting
back in the White House, simply because we missed Sagamore Hill so much.
But it is very beautiful and we feel very ungrateful at having even a tem-
porary fit of blueness, and we are enjoying it to the full now. I have just
seen Archie dragging some fifty foot of hose pipe across the tennis court to
play m the sand box. I have been playing tennis with Mr. Pinchot, who beat
me three sets to one, the only deuce set being the one I won. Your loving
father

[. Handwritten ] This is just an occasion to show the stuff there is in you.
Do’n’t let these newspaper creatures and kindred idiots drive you one hairs-
breadth from the hne you had marked out, in football or anything else; &
avoid any fuss, if possible.

3695 • to james s. clarkson Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 3, 1905

My dear Mr. Clarkson: I have your letter of the 2d instant. I like Marcus
Braun . I did all I could for him, but he owed his fate to his own folly. 1 His

1 In 1904, and again in 1905, Marcus Braun, as a special immigration inspector for the
Department of Commerce and Labor, was ordered to investigate reports that Austria-
Hungary was encouraging an excessive immigration of Austro-Hungarian nationals
to the United States. Braun’s reports ( House Document, 59 Cong., 1 sess., no. 384)
charged Count Tisza, the Prime Minister, with negotiating a contract with the Cun-

resignation was not forced. I was reluctant to accept it but he insisted upon
it. If, as you say, the Austro-Hungarian Government is able to say that his
resignation has been foiced because he had been proved to be a former con-
vict, the fault is purely and exclusively Braun’s. He took action and insisted
upon taking action which made it possible for his enemies to say this; and
where a man does that no human being can help him. You speak about his
being left unvmdicated Vindicated from what? From the consequences of
his own actions. If he had not resigned there would have been no need of
any vindication. In Austro-Hungary he acted with extreme folly. He was
anxious, as so many born abroad are, to return to the country of his birth.
If I had known about the matter I should have told them at once not to send
him back there; but he was sent back, and he behaved unwisely. He was then
quietly withdrawn I may mention that our authority for the statement that
he behaved unwisely is the American Ambassador, who reported most
strongly against the mjudiciousness of his general conduct, but his being
withdrawn would have made no difference whatever to him if he had not
himself insisted upon dragging it out and brandishing it around. He was
employed in one place and another place from time to time as other men in
his grade were, and he was taken out of one country just as men are con-
tinually taken out of certain countries and sent to others. All he had to do was
to go on and do his duty and keep his mouth shut, and no human being, after
a very few days, would have so much as remembered what had occurred; but
he could not make up his mind to keep his mouth shut and he insisted upon
resigning.

You say that the assaults on Mr. Braun have greatly affected the Hun-

ard Lmc whereby his government would icceive a pciccntagc of all transportation
business to the United States. To enlarge their profits, Braun claimed, officials were
forcing emigration of Austrians and Hungarians to America Braun also described
m his report the dcploiable conditions at emigrant stations and on Cunard trans-
port ships.

While on his second trip to Budapest, Braun precipitated a minor diplomatic
crisis. On May 14, 1905, he reported to Ambassador Storcr that the Austro-Hungarian
police had opened his official mail. The police, m turn, arrested Braun for assaulting
a detective; they also claimed that Braun’s official position had not been clarified by
the United States government. The State Department, the Department of Commcice
and Labor, Ambassador Storcr, and the Austro-Hungarian government exchanged
views on Braun, who, m the meantime, quietly returned to his position at Ellis
Island and his duties as president of the Hungarian Republican Club of New York.
Throughout the summer, however, he publicly proclaimed the indignities he had
suffered and, in August, resigned from the department. On October 31st he was
reappointed at Roosevelt’s suggestion.

In his annual message of December 5th, 1905, the President recommended
severe penalties for soliciting undesirable immigration and a “sharp limitation” on
the number of immigrants carried by each vessel As a result of this incident, the
House of Representatives m 1906 passed a resolution authorizing further investiga-
tion of Austro-Hungarian immigration Also in 1906, Braun published a poetic vindi-
cation of himself and a less poetic attack on Ambassador Storcr for insufficiehtly
supporting his cause against the Hungarian government and against society m
general See Marcus Braun, Immigration Abuses (New York, 1906),

garian Republican societies and led to much demoralizdtion through keen
disappointment. I am very sorry, but the assaults are rendered possible only
by Mr. Braun’s own conduct, and there is absolutely nothing whatever that
I can do or that anyone else can do for him. What he needs is the power to
blot out the fact that he resigned, the fact that he caused all this talk and
invited and challenged all these assaults. Nobody else is to blame m any way.
Sincerely yours

[. Handwritten ] Understand me, I think the Austro-Hungarian govern-
ment behaved badly, but the damage to Braun came from Braun’s own un-
wisdom

3696 • TO SAMUEL SYDNEY MCCLURE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 4, 1905

My dear Mr. McClure : 1 I return you the letter to Mr. Colton 2 and Mr.
Colton’s to you. It seems to me that in the rough Dr. Colton has a great deal
of justice in his position. As I said to you and Steffens today, I think Steffens
ought to put more sky in his landscape. I do not have to say to you that a
man may say what is absolutely true and yet give an impression so one-sided
as not to represent the whole truth. It is an unfortunate thing to encourage
people to believe that all crimes are connected with business, and that the
crime of graft is the only crime. I wish very much that you could have articles
showing up the hideous iniquity of which mobs are guilty, the wrongs of
violence by the poor as well as the wrongs of corruption by the rich. I feel
that very great good is done by a crusade against corruption such as you have
carried on, provided only it is clearly shown that we must not confine our
hostility to the wealthy, nor feel indignant only at corruption. There are
other classes just as guilty, and other crimes as bad. At the time of the French
Revolution most of what was said about the oppression of the people was
true, but inasmuch as the reformers dwelt only on the wrongs done by the
noble and wealthy classes, and upon the wrongs suffered by the poorer
people, their conduct led up to the hideous calamity of the Terror, which put
back the cause of liberty for over a generation. Put sky m the landscape, and
show, not incidentally but of set purpose, that you stand as much against
anarchic violence and crimes of brutality as against corruption and crimes of
greed; as much against demagogic assaults on the well off, as against crimes
by the well off.

It was a great pleasure to see you both today. Sincerely yours

Hn the tousled prose of Lincoln Steffens, “this was Sam [Samuel Sidney] McClure,
the wild editor of McClure's Magazine. Blond, smiling, enthusiastic, unreliable, he
was the receiver of the ideas of his day He was a flower that did not sit and wait
for the bees to come and take his honey and leave their seeds He flew forth to find
and rob the bees.”

a Arthur Willis Colton, an author of pleasant essays and harmless novels, notably
The Delectable Mountains .

[Handwritten] Do show this to Baker, it applies of course to his future
articles also.

3697 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 5, 1905

My Dear Mr. Secretary: I would like your comment upon the enclosed clip-
ping. If Mgr. Agius has sent any account of my daughter’s visit, which has
been made pubhc, I think I shall take some notice of it. The Vatican ought to
understand that I shall not tolerate any official recognition of any kind or sort
being shown to any representative who comments upon what one of my
children does. They have nothing to do with politics international or internal,
and if Mgr. Agius has sent what is here represented he has been guilty of an
unwarranted impertinence which I shall resent. 1

I also enclose to you a copy of a cable received from Minister Gnscom.
I doubt if it calls for any reply at all If it did, I think that a sufficient answer
would be that we neither ask nor give any favor to anyone as a reward for
not meddling with any American territory. We are entirely competent to
prevent such meddling, and require no guaranty of assistance to preserve
our territorial integrity. Sincerely yours

3 <598 • TO GEORGE GRAY Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 6, 1905

My dear Judge Gray: I want to take up the football situation and try to get
the game played on a thoroughly clean basis. 1 With that end in view I have
asked the coaches and physical directors of Harvard, Princeton and Yale to
come to lunch at the White House on Monday, October 9th, at 1 30 Cannot
you come too 5 1 should awfully like to have you. Faithfully yours

1 The Vatican, tire World reported, was perturbed at a report from Monsignor Agius,
the Apostolic Delegate m the Philippines, that Alice Roosevelt had “made too much
of the personal call made upon her in Manila by the schismatic Archbishop Aglipay.”
The same report stated that Pius X, “upset for several days after hearing of the
affair,” had postponed congratulating Roosevelt on the President’s success as a
peacemaker "until some explanation” was forthcoming Except for the fact that
Aglipay had visited Alice, this story rested on discerning but undocumented editorial
conjecture

1 The President was seeking ways to reduce the injuries and deaths that were occur-
ring m college football At his instigation Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, then still
potentially injurious, agreed to rules that limited the dangers of the game Other
colleges shortly followed the same course.

3699 * T0 JAMES ROCKWELL SHEFFIELD Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, October 7, 1903

Dear Jim: I hate to write you as I am going to, but after carefully going over
the matter with Root and Moody I do not well see how I can avoid appoint-
ing Morris. 1 Senator Platt came around again to tell me that this was the only
appointment in which he was really exceedingly interested. He was perfectly
nice about it and was not bullying or offensive in any way, but said that I
had always assured him that I would appoint men he recommended if he
gave me men of the proper character, and that (which is perfectly true) he
was continually yielding to my desires m the appointment of men whom
he did not himself like and who had been personal opponents of his, but
whom I regarded as peculiarly fit for given places; and that now he had
recommended a man whom all the federal judges joined in most highly rec-
ommending, and for whom he understood Root as well as the outgoing dis-
trict attorney would speak. The letters of the three judges and the district
attorney are as follows:

New York, December Sixth 1904.

The President:

I understand that General Burnett does not seek to be reappointed United
States District Attorney for New York and that Robert C. Morris is a candidate
for the position. I have known Mr. Morris for nearly twenty years, first as my
pupil m the Yale Law School where by a five years’ course of study he earned the
degree of Doctor of Civil Law, later as a fellow lecturer in the Law School and
finally as a practitioner engaged in active practice m New York where he has suc-
ceeded to the business of the old and eminent firm of which Gen Wager Swayne
was the senior partner. It gives me great pleasure to testify from this long acquaint-
ance to Mr. Morris’s high character and ample equipment by reason of natural
ability, close continuous study and varied and extended experience at the bar and
in active political and diplomatic life, and to assure you that by reason thereof, he
is, in my humble judgment, abundantly qualified for the duties of the office for
which he is a candidate.

I therefore earnestly commend him to your favorable consideration.

Wm. K Townsend

Sheffield hoped to succeed Burnett as United States Attorney for the Southern
District of New York For that post Platt supported Morris, and Odell favored
Elsberg. Roosevelt, as this letter indicates, at first intended to appoint Morris As
intraparty tensions m New York increased during the Platt-Odell struggle over the
organization of the legislature, Roosevelt changed his mind. He sought to preserve a
neutral position between the New York factions and also to weaken both sides by
publicly supporting those Republicans who favored his own views To further this
endeavor he appointed, m January 1906, Henry L. Stimson District Attorney for the
Southern District of New York. Stimson, a close friend and former law partner of
Root, was endorsed by Platt after the President made it clear that Morris would
not be appointed Roosevelt later offered Moms a federal district judgeship which
Morris declined

District Court of the United States,

Southern District of New York.

New York City, Dec. 6, 1904.

To His Excellency

The President of the United States.

My dear Sir*

I understand that Robert C. Morris, Esq., is an applicant for the position of
United States Attorney for this district; the appointment to be made when the
term of the present incumbent expires. I have known Mr. Morris quite well for
several years in a personal and professional capacity and take great pleasure in
adding my recommendation to the others which I understand will be submitted
to you. He is a man of fine character and well fitted by his attainments and experi-
ence to perform the duties of the office satisfactorily. I am quite sure, should you
conclude to appoint him, that you and the public will be pleased with his conduct
in all respects. I cordially endorse him and hope to hear that he has received the
appointment.

With every assurance of respect,

I am your obedient servant,
Geo. B. Adams.

District Court of the United States,

Southern District of New York. New York City, December 6th, 1904.

To the President,

Washington, D. C.

My dear Sir

I understand that Robert C. Morris, Esq., of this city, proposes to be a candi-
date for the position of United States District Attorney, in succession to Henry L.
Burnett, Esq. I very cordially recommend his appointment I have known Mr
Morris for a number of years He has often served as Receiver m Bankruptcy, and
I have had many opportunities to be familiar with his method of transacting busi-
ness. I regard him as a capable and efficient lawyer, of entire integrity and discre-
tion, who would make, in my opinion, an excellent appointment.

Yours sincerely,

Geo. C. Holt

United States Attorney’s Office,
New York, December 5th, 1904.

The President,

Washington, D. C.

Sir*

I am informed that Robert C. Morris, Esq. of this City, is a candidate as my
successor for the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of
New York, and I have been requested to express my opinion as to his qualifica-
tions and fitness for the place.

It gives me pleasure to do this. I have known Mr Morris quite well both per-
sonally and professionally for the last eight or ten years. He is a man of high
character, good legal attainments, has had considerable experience as a lawyer
both in the United States and State Courts, is energetic and industrious, fair and
judicial m temperament and mind, clean pure and upright, I believe, in all the
relations of life. He is fit and well qualified in my judgment, to discharge the duties

which would devolve upon him if appointed U. S. Attorney for this District, and
I have great pleasure in recommending his appointment.

Respectfully,

Henry L. Burnett.

I took these letters to Root. He told me he had recommended John S.
Wise and stood by his recommendation — although I do not think he had any
heart in it — but that he considered Morris an excellent man for the place,
and in view of the backing he had received he felt very strongly that I ought
to appoint him, and that it would be most unfortunate to have anything like
a break with Platt when Platt had so scrupulously fulfilled the conditions I
said must be fulfilled in the recommendations I required as to the character
and capacity of men who were to be appointed to such offices, especially as
this was the one appointment upon which Platt was more insistent than upon
any other.

I cannot say how reluctant I am to have to come to this conclusion.
Faithfully yours

3700 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 7, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: The memorandum 1 you enclosed in your letter puts
the case even better, as I look over it now, than I had remembered it. Our
position could not have been stated with greater accuracy. The statement
about the Philippines was merely to clear up Japan’s attitude, which had been
purposely misrepresented by pro-Russian sympathizers and is shown to have
been entirely apart from your statements — that is, our statements — in
reference to Korea and in reference to our having the same interests with
Japan and Great Britain in preserving the peace of the Orient. Sincerely
yours

3701 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 8, 1905

Dear Elihu: Parsons, Olcott, and other people from New York are asking
me to wire Hughes that I think he ought to accept. I would think it a
mighty good thing if he would accept, but I don’t like to wire him. Parsons
suggests as an alternative that you wire him. What do you think of it ? Of
course I very much wish that he would accept, and if he would not make my
action public, I would like to wire him, but I don’t like to interfere in what
is not my business. I don’t think he ought permanently to abandon the work
he is engaged in, of course, and I merely submit the matter to you for your

“The Taft-Katsura Agreement

judgment. Loeb does not think Hughes ought to accept because he thinks the
people would regard it as a dexterous move to sidetrack him frOm the investi-
gation. 1

I enclose Parsons’ and Olcott’s letters. Faithfully yours

3702 • TO ISAAC WAYNE MAC VEAGH lR.OOSevelt MsS.

Personal Washington, October 8, 1905

My dear Mr . MacVeagh: The more I have thought over th$£ the more un-
wise it seems to me to vary in my attitude as to the federaKcontrol of life
insurance. I am sure it is a wise thing to have. I am doubtful whether I can get
it. Senator Bulkeley 1 is against it, as Senator Dryden is for it. I have been
asked to favor it because one man is against it, and to oppose it because the
other man is for it. It does not seem to me that I can pay heed to the position
of either.

You may be amused to know that Mr. Andrew Carnegie has offered to
give the last $50,000 (thereby showing his canniness) if we return all the
contributions — which, for some reason, in the clipping he enclosed were
assumed to be $480,000 — supposed to be tainted money. Remembering your
remark to me that Mr. Carnegie had obtained most of his money by simple
theft I felt that if the suggestion was adopted for our returning this money
we would probably need a jury of experts to pass upon the comparative mo-
tives of the donors in both cases and the comparative amounts of tamtedness
of the different sums of money. Of course the whole agitation about giving
back the money is nine-tenths mere hysteria and one-tenth dishonesty.
Sincerely yours

3703 * TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt M*S.

Washington, October 9, 1905

My dear Mr Attorney General: Now that I am here m Washington I should
like to have you arrange a meeting at which I could myself be present (after

1 At an ad hoc convention of the New York City Republicans, Odell had arranged
the nomination of Charles Evans Hughes for mayor. The party reform element had
supported this move m the interests of political purity. Odell’s motive, however,
may well have been to remove Hughes from the insurance investigation which was
beginning to embarrass the former governor and his fuend Harnman. While
Hughes considered the nomination, the Hearst Municipal Ownership League sug-
gested he would have league endorsement if he ran Hughes, however, refused. The
Republican nomination then, again at Odell’s instigation, went to William Ivins, a
colorless, safe “regular.” Hearst himself was the candidate of the league.

1 Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, since 1 879 president of the Aetna Life Insurance Com-
pany, Republican Governor of Connecticut, 1889-1893, senator, 1905-1911. A con-
stant and vigorous opponent of Roosevelt’s policies, Bulkeley m 1905-1906 led the
successful fight m the Senate against the President’s request for national legislation
to regulate marine, fire, and life insurance

5 °

a preliminary meeting has been held under your own personal jurisdiction)
between representatives of the Colorado interests backing the so-called
Moffatt railroad scheme; representatives of the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce, whose position is set forth in the accompanying telegram to me,
and representatives of the Reclamation Service, and if necessary of the In-
terior Department generally.

In Colorado I found that there was a general, an almost universal, senti-
ment in favor of the Moffatt Railroad Company being allowed to complete
its work (which is for the development of Colorado) without further
hindrance, the courts having decided against the Government, and I directed
that proceedings to reverse the action of the court be not taken until I had
a chance carefully to go into the matter. The Reclamation Service and many
people who live in the neighborhood of the lower Colorado evidently feel
that the Colorado position is entirely wrong. Apparently there are conflicting
equities as between the people of Colorado, who wish to have a certain section
of their State developed as rapidly and thoroughly as possible, and the
people along the lower Colorado River, who desire that storage reservoirs be
built for their benefit in the State of Colorado itself. Of course in addition
to this there is the selfish interest of the railroad to use the proposed site. All
kinds of considerations enter into the matter. The railroad people insist, and
straight, clean men like Mr Philip B. Stewart back them in insisting, that
they cannot, save at prohibitive cost, build a railroad to develop the portion
of Colorado in question if the dams desired by the Government are put up.
On the other hand, the Reclamation Service insists that the railroad can per-
fectly well be built, although at an increased cost, if the dams are put up;
and that the dams are vital to the welfare of the people of southern California
and part of Arizona.

The matter is of such great importance that I think some man should be
appointed by you to go into the whole subject at the earliest possible moment.
Will you take this up with me at Cabinet tomorrow 5 1 directed the Secretary
of the Interior to turn over the papers in this matter to Mr. Gifford Pinchot.
Will you communicate with the Secretary of the Interior and Mr. Pinchot
at once m the matter 5 1 Sincerely yours

3704 ■ TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK ROOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 10, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: I am both concerned and puzzled over that portion
of the memorandum for insertion m my message, which you handed me
today, which runs as follows.

1 The Moffatt Railroad Company was allowed to continue its operations, execution

of the Grand Valley Project by the Reclamation Service was delayed until 1912

See George Wharton James, Reclaiming the And West (New York, 1917), pp. n6-

124. See also No 3919.

Likewise, the failure of justice in certain cases of violation of laws evidences
the fact that it is due to lack of proper qualifications on the part of officers of the
Government charged with the enforcement of the law. This condition could be
most effectually remedied by the abandonment of the policy which has heretofore
been pursued for many years, of selecting people for positions requiring confirma-
tion by the Senate principally because they have rendered some political service.
This practice he regards as pernicious, and one which should no longer prevail,
being against the interests of the Government. The including of positions of this
character within the classified service would enable the Government to ascertain
the fitness of applicants for such positions, intellectually and otherwise, and even-
tuate in the administration of such offices on a practical business basis, by persons
who are subject to the rules of the Department and capable of being removed by
the Executive for proper cause

This paragraph implies not only that the men appointed by me m your
Department are chosen in accordance with a policy which is against the
interests of the Government, without regard to the fitness of the applicants
intellectually and otherwise, but it also implies that the offices are not ad-
ministered on a practical business basis at present, that the persons who now
administer them are not subject to the rules of the Department, and that they
cannot be removed by the Executive for proper cause. This is, of course, not
meant by you to be a reflection upon either you or me, but upon the Senators,
and your proposed remedy is that these positions should no longer be filled
by nomination of the President and confirmation of the Senate, but should by
law be put in the classified service. Nevertheless, though your intention is
not to reflect upon you and me, your words do contain a most serious reflec-
tion upon both of us. In making appointments it is true that we must nor-
mally rely upon the advice of the Senators or Congressmen, simply because
it is impossible that either you or I could have personal knowledge of the
men to be appointed. But wherever we find we are not getting good advice
from any Senator it is our own fault if we do not ourselves employ means
to satisfy ourselves as to the kind of nominee proposed. This, for instance, is
exactly what Mr. Leupp is now doing in the Indian Service. He is personally
and through his employees and through outside citizens with whom he is in
correspondence, getting such information as to enable him to be reasonably
sure that the men he recommends to me for appointment as Indian Agents are
thoroughly fit to perform their duties. This is the course he has pursued, for
instance, m the two Indian Agents I appointed within the last week m South
Dakota and Oklahoma. I have every reason to believe that while of course
occasionally mistakes will be made and occasionally unfit men will be put
into office, yet that under Mr. Leupp I am getting a pretty good type of
Indian Agent; better men than we could obtain by any kind of competitive
examination which has yet been developed Now, if in the other bureaus or
divisions of your Department we are not getting as good results as we are
getting under Mr. Leupp, I think the fault must lie in these bureaus or

divisions. Certainly we must share the blame with the Senators, and the
memorandum you handed me, although doubtless not intentionally so, is
even in this matter of appointments a severe reflection upon my actions and
your actions, no less than upon the actions of the Senators. I think it would
be better to have all the places to which I understand you to refer placed m
the classified service; but I doubt if it is feasible; and I think we can get fairly
good men in them anyhow.

But in what you say or imply as to the administration of the offices under
you “not being on a practical business basis” and as to the “persons who
administer them not being subject to the rules of the Department” and “not
being removable by the Executive for proper cause,” why you reflect not
on the Senators at all but purely on yourself and myself and on your sub-
ordinates. We have the same right of discipline, including removal, over the
men now m office by Presidential appointment as we have over the men in
the classified service — indeed properly speaking our right of removal is
somewhat more limited in the latter case than in the former. If the administra-
tion of the offices m your Department is not on a practical business basis the
remedy lies much less m a change of law than in a change in the supervision
of the offices. Surely you must have subordinates, or must be able to get
subordinates, to whose courage, intelligence and honesty you can trust in
the supervision of the offices in question. Every man you have under you is
subject to the rules of the Department. If he violates these rules you have
nothing to do but to remove him yourself, or if I am the only man who can
remove him then to report him to me and he will be removed forthwith. You
state or imply that these persons are not now “capable of being removed by
the Executive for proper cause.” There is not a man under you who cannot
be removed by the Executive for proper cause. It is less than a month, for
instance, since I thus removed McGillivray, of North Dakota, from one of
the land offices against the emphatic protest of both the North Dakota
Senators; and I have repeatedly thus removed men in Montana, Washington
and Idaho within the last year or two, not to speak of other States. Within
a week I have thus removed a Territorial judge in Arizona, who was ap-
pointed at the personal request of a Senator from Nebraska.

I do not think you realize how serious the statement is which you have
thus made. It implies the gravest dereliction of duty either in you or m me.
I ask you to give me as soon as you possibly can the name of every employee
under you, whether he holds office by your appointment or by mine, who is
not “administering his office on a practical business basis,” who is not “show-
ing himself subject to the rules of the Department,” or who, having given
“proper cause for removal by the Executive,” is yet allowed to remain m
office. Of course if the charges prove baseless as in the case of the Surveyor
' General of Colorado, the man will not be removed, or if, as in the case of
the Inspector, Linnen, who made the charges against the Surveyor General
of Colorado, it is your judgment that the offense, although serious, can be

met merely by suspension and reprimand, or by some lesser punishment,
then I shall be inclined to lean to your judgment, as I did in the Linnen case,
where I originally, as you remember, recommended removal; 1 but in every
case where it can be shown to my satisfaction that your subordinate is not
doing his duty, is disobeying the rules of the Department, or that proper
cause of any kind for his removal exists, he will be removed. 2 Sincerely yours

3705 • TO FREDERICK DELANO Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 11, 1905

My dear Mr. Delano: 1 1 thank you for your very kind and courteous letter.
It is a little difficult to answer it save by practically repeating in outline what
I shall say in my forthcoming message. If you get a chance to come to
Washington I shall ask you to meet Attorney General Moody with me. I
shall then tell you of certain experiences we have had with railroads and with
other corporations, which I think will make you more clearly understand
than I could in any number of letters why I feel so strongly that if we do not
get some form of government regulation we shall be faced with a most
unpleasant movement either for government ownership of the railroads, or
else for legislation against corporations which would really be of a drastic
and damaging character. To illustrate, by the way, how differently different
men must necessarily look at things, I may mention that while I share your
regard for Judge Cooley, 2 yet that as concerns Mr. Charles Francis Adams
I can only say that while I know nothing of him in connection with railroads
I have followed with some interest the various positions he has taken in public
life during the last eight years, and that during that time it would be hard to
find any man whose judgment has been more consistently and perversely
faulty. Sincerely yours

370 6 • TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 14, 1905

My dear Dr. Abbott: You know I swear by the Outlook and feel it renders
an incalculable service in the cause of decent government. Therefore I feel
a real regret when the Outlook publishes such an article as Clifford

1 Roosevelt had recommended the removal of Edward B. Linnen on the advice of
P. B. Stewart who had disproved the charges of faulty administration against
Surveyor General John F. Vivian Linnen in 1906 became special investigator into
the Warren Live Stock Company frauds.

2 Roosevelt, in spite of the elaborate explanation m this letter, was concerned about
the situation described by the Secretary of the Interior. On October 14 he ordered
the Keep Commission to make a thorough investigation of the department, paying
special attention to the administrative conditions in the local land offices.

1 Frederick Delano, president, Wabash Railroad.

2 Thomas McIntyre Cooley, jurist, railroad expert, first chairman of the Interstate
Commerce Commission. He had died in 1898

Howard’s “Spirit of Graft.” I never heard of Mr. Howard 1 and of course
would never dream of entering mto a controversy with him, but you are
quite welcome to show him this letter, for his statements derive importance
when they appear m your publication. The whole article is the kind that
almost more than any other helps dishonest people, for it tends to confuse
the minds of honest people as to the real issues. To speak of the fact that
clerks use pencils and government stationery as being in principle as bad as
theft is, of course, simply nonsense, and wicked nonsense, too. The law rule
de minimis applies. Such a statement as that “The spirit of graft finds univer-
sal expression throughout the government service” can be truthfully stigma-
tized m but one way. It is a he and a wicked lie, and Mr. Howard having
been guilty of it occupies a position in my judgment not one whit better than
the real grafter, and infinitely below the very worst of the men whom he
accuses, for most of the latter are not guilty of any shortcomings whatever.
There are S7nall abuses here and there in the Government service, we correct
them where possible, but to speak as if they were criminal “graft” is a harmful
absurdity.

But this is not all Mr. Howard speaks of the story of a widow being
appointed to office as a reward for returning a valuable gold watch which
had been lost by an influential official. This story was published about the
Secretary to the President, Mr. Loeb. It was immediately contradicted and
it had no foundation whatever of any kind or sort. Yet this baseless slander
is repeated by Mr. Howard. The New York Times used this story as the
basis of an editorial, but on the facts being made public apologized for having
done so.

Again Mr. Howard speaks, as another instance of the improper emolu-
ments of higher office, of that afforded by the private use of horses and
carriages provided for official purposes. He is apparently ignorant or else he
wilfully conceals the fact that the law at present specifically provides for
exactly this use, designating the officials by title wh6 are authorized to have
carriages for their “personal and official” use. By immemorial custom this
privilege had obtained, most wisely, for various officials But when Congress
took it up and, as I think, quite improperly cut down the number of carriages
used by officials most of whom are very much underpaid, it specifically
provided that the carriages which were appropriated for should be for the
personal as well as official use of the officials concerned. If Mr. Howard had
any knowledge of conditions m Washington, or any honesty in describing
them, he would know that when these equipages are, as he puts it, “at the
service of wives and daughters for calling” — they are really being used for
official purposes quite as much as when used to drive to and from the De-
partments The same thing is true of what he says as to the use of messengers.

1 Howard also delved into the spirit of man, nature, and religion as author of Twigs,

Leaves and Blossoms (1892), Sex Worship * An Exposition of the Phallic Origin of

Religion (1897), Suffrage for Two (1913).

There may be a few cases such as he describes; but in all the cases I know of
the men are paid by their superiors for outside service. As a general and
broad statement it is a falsehood. Again Mr. Howard says that the head
of a large bureau in Washington not long ago had three servants regularly
installed in his household who appeared on the rolls of the government as
clerks or laborers; that in reality one was a seamstress and the other two were
a coachman and a butler. I suppose this relates to the Herald story about
Willis Moore, the Chief of the Weather Bureau. Mr. Moore denied it as false.
If Mr. Howard has any proof of the matter I shall take it up at once.

In short, my dear Doctor Abbott, I feel that the same condemnation that
we mete out to a thief in the government service should be meted out to a
liar who slanders the government servant, for the bar is the man who does
most to produce the thief and to make it easy for him to be a thief by con-
fusing the mind of the public between honesty and dishonesty. Sincerely
yours

I also enclose you copy of a letter I have just sent to George Kennan.
P.S. I enclose you a newspaper clipping and a memorandum by Dr.
Stokes, 2 about Dr. Seaman . 3 1 think I told you that I got Dr. Seaman down
here, thinking he might have something of value to say; but after a full inter-
view with him I found that there was literally not one thing to be gained
from him, not a fact that he had to tell which we did not already know,
and not an intelligent remedy to propose. It is possible that he has done
some good by calling to the attention of the public the fact that there
are needs in the army which ought to be met by an increase in our
medical force; but it would be impossible to accept him as an ally, because
no one could afford to be responsible for his utterly reckless statements.

3707 • TO GEORGE KENNAN Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, October 15, 1905

My dear Mr. Kennan: I have just received your letter and the book of photo-
graphs, both of which were very interesting. I had seen most of the photo-
graphs already. I very much like your first article on Korea, in the Outlook , 1
but at present I wish to write you as to your article called “The Sword of
Peace in Japan.” 2 As far as I am concerned it is of exceedingly little impor-

“ Charles Francis Stokes, at that time Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy
Medical Corps. Stokes later became Surgeon General, United States Navy, and Chief
of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 1910-1914

“Louis Livingston Seaman, New York surgeon. A delegate to many international
medical congresses, Seaman was also surgeon general of the Spanish-American War
veterans. In 1903 he studied conditions in the Second Imperial Army of Japan in
Manchuria Seaman later became a special correspondent for The Independent
during the First World War.

““Korea. A Degenerate State,” Outlook, 8i 307-313 (October 7, 1905).

“See Outlook, 81 337-363 (October 14, 1905).

5<5

tance what anyone says about the peace negotiations. My object in bringing
them was not my own personal credit or even the advancement of this coun-
try, but the securing of peace. Peace was secured. Personally I believe that the
credit of this country was greatly increased by it, and as far as I am personally
affected I have received infinitely more praise for it than in my opinion I
deserved; and I have not been very greatly concerned as to whether I was
praised or blamed. But you are writing as a man supposed to know the facts at
first hand. Your writings will be read here and read m Japan, and while you
may not do much damage to America you may do some to Japan if you get
your facts crooked. They are crooked m this article. You say that it seems
to you that “it would have been much better both for Russia and Japan if
President Roosevelt had waited until the close of this campaign before he
had proposed a peace conference.” What I am about to say is for your own
information and not for the public. I acted at the time I did at the written
request of Japan, and when Japan made the request I explained to the Japa-
nese Government that in my judgment she would not get an indemnity, and
she asked me to bring about the peace meeting with full knowledge of the
fact that m my opinion she neither deserved nor would get an indemnity. You
say that Marshal Oyama, if I had waited, would probably have defeated
General Linevitch. Your guess is probably as good as anyone else’s, and no
better. Personally I should make the same guess, but the ugly fact remains that
after winning the battle of Mukden Marshal Oyama instead of being able to
press his demoralized foe, had let four months and over go by without being
able to strike him, and that the Russian army had recovered its morale, was
in good position, was reinforced, and was very anxious to be allowed to try
the chances of another battle before peace was declared. As I say, I personally
think you are right m your guess, and I took this view m my communications
with the Russians; but it is not a matter about which anyone can be sure.
The parallel you draw between what has happened to Russia and an imagi-
nary case of what might happen if we were engaged in a war with Germany
is thoroughly misleading, if only from the simple fact that in drawing it you
were ignorant that it was not the “suggestion of an outsider” but the im-
mediate need of Japan, and the earnest wish of the Japanese Government
(expressed m writing) which brought about the peace conference. Your
fancied analogy would have to be corrected by supposing that every serious
American statesman knew that America would be terribly exhausted by
further war, and that, if she should retain what she had gained, peace was
urgently necessary, while there was nothing she wanted which it was possible
for her to gam by further war. It is simply nonsense for anyone to talk of
the Japanese being m a position to demand an indemnity. No nation that does
not give up anything ever gets an indemnity in such circumstances or ever
could get it unless the other nation was hopelessly frightened. In recent
times no sensible nation has made such a request. Moreover, your whole com-
parison is vitiated by the fact (which, my dear Mr. Kennan, it is extraor-

dinary that you do not know) that the prime motive influencing Japan to
wish peace was not any one of those that you give, but her great personal
interest in obtaining peace on the very terms that finally were obtained and
at that very time. You were on the ground. There may be reasons why you
do not choose to make public the fact; but if these reasons do not exist, it is
extraordinary that you should not know the fact, that the head men of many
villages and country communities in Japan were notifying the government
that they could not spare any more of their young men, that if more of
their young men were drawn for the army the rice fields would have to be
partially abandoned and a partial famine would ensue, and that moreover the
little savings of their people had all been exhausted. I believe that Japan was
partly influenced by proper motives of humanity and by the desire to have
the respect of the nations as a whole, and that this feeling had its weight in
influencing the Japanese statesmen who knew the facts to disregard the views
held by the Tokyo mob and which are substantially the views set forth by
you. But the main factor in influencing Japan was undoubtedly the fact that
to go on with the war meant such an enormous loss, such an enormous cost
to her, that she could not afford to incur it save from dire need. For example,
you speak about her not having obtained the north half of Sakhalin Island.
She had not reduced to possession this north half of Sakhalin, and there were
Russian forces still there, a fact of which you do not seem to be aware. But
this is not important. It may interest you to know, again for your own private
use, the following facts. Do what I could I was unable to get the Czar to
yield more than the south half of Sakhalin. On the point of honor he insisted
on keeping the comparatively valueless northern half. So far from advising
the Japanese to give up on the question of Sakhalin, I explicitly told and
wrote them that in my judgment they would be justified in fighting for
Sakhalin. I did not appieciate quite hovv urgent their need of peace was.
They, as I think with eminent propriety, went a httle beyond what I ad-
vised and made peace without getting the northern half of Sakhalin. I had
told them all along that to fight for an indemnity merely, would forfeit the
respect of everybody whose respect was worth having, and would be an
act of wicked folly, for it would mean at the very best at least another year
of war, and mortgaging the future of Japan for a generation to come, while
they would get nothing of any value to them. They would certainly not get
any money, and if, as I thought was likely, they conquered East Siberia,
they would get what they explicitly assured me that they did not want and
what would cost them an immense amount to administer, while there would
always be the risk that some reverse would occur, in which case the damage
done to Japan might well be irreparable.

The above are the facts. They are for your private information. I do not
intend to make public any of the details about this peace, because the Japa-
nese have asked me not to make public those details which they think would
in any way embarrass them, and I am anxious to do what they desire. But I

do intend, privately, to keep intelligent observers sufficiently enlightened to
prevent their going wrong. I think it is wise that a man of your standing who
is supposed to speak with knowledge, should for his own information merely,
know what the facts are and thereby avoid taking a position as wholly mis-
taken as you have taken in the part of your article to which I have referred.

Let me repeat. The peace negotiations were entered into by me at the
instance of Japan. The treaty of peace was finally made by Japan because it
was greatly to her interest to make it then, and in the shape in which it was
made. Japan was not entitled to an indemnity, and in my judgment it is so
absurd to suppose that she was entitled to an indemnity as to mark the man
making the claim as either utterly ignorant of the facts or not competent to
pass upon the facts. Japan gained everything she was entitled to. She was
entitled to much and she gained much. It would have been (from the stand-
point of her own interest) criminal, as well as foolish to the last degree, for
her to continue the war under these circumstances, and she owes a great debt
of gratitude to her statesmen who disregarded the feelings of the mob at
home and of their well-meaning but most ill-advised counselors abroad who
desired her to take any other course. The peace was made on practically
exactly the terms on which it should have been made. It was for the interest
of Japan; it was for the interest of Russia; it was for the interest of the world.
Sincerely yours

P.S. The Japanese note to me from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of May
3 ist last ran in part as follows: (It was addressed to Takahira.)

“You will express to the President the hope of the Japanese Government
that he will see his way directly and entirely of his own initiative to invite
the two belligerents to come together for the purpose of direct negotiation.”
In another part of the note it ran as follows:

“The friendly assistance of some neutral will be essential in order to
bring them together for the purpose of such negotiation and the Japanese
Government would prefer to have that office undertaken by a neutral in
whose good judgment and wise discretion they have entire confidence.”

This information is given to you confidentially. Dr. Abbott knows it.
So do two or three other people — Secretary Root, Secretary Taft, Senator
Lodge. I do not know for certain the exact reasons why Japan does not wish
that it be made public; but of course I take for granted that it is because the
Japanese Government feels it might hurt them with their people at home
and might have a bad effect upon their prestige abroad. You will, therefore,
please be very careful not to make it public. I think the Japanese Government
has behaved very well, and I want to help them, and therefore help Japan as
far as I can, and I am very slightly concerned as to the opinion entertained of
me personally m Japan or elsewhere as regards this peace matter. At the same
time I do not deem it desirable that an observer whose writings will have
weight, as yours will have, should from ignorance of the facts draw totally
wrong conclusions. I do not care in the least what an individual like Dr.

Seaman says, for he is not to be taken seriously. But you are to be taken
seriously, and I do not want to see you go wrong.

Let me again say that while it was even more to Russia’s interest than to
Japan’s that peace should come on the terms, upon which it actually came,
yet that it was very greatly to Japan’s interest also, and that while Japan
went a little further than I had advised her to go, in yielding the north half
of Sakhalin without getting anything for it, yet as this north half of Sakhalin
was a trivial matter, and the amount she could have gotten would have been
very small, I think she was wise m doing so.

3708 • TO WILLIAM D. MURPHY Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, October 17, 1905

My dear Mr. Murphy: Mr. Loeb has shown me your letter to him of the
1 (Sth. Confidentially, I do not want to seem to be identified at all with that
Roosevelt Home Club work. I have felt very uncomfortable about the effort
to purchase and preserve the house at all. It does not seem to me worth while,
and most emphatically it is something with which I should be in no way
connected If m any way you could quietly discouiage there being any
further movement after this year’s banquet, I think it would be a good thing. 1
With warm regards, believe me, Sincerely yours

3 709 • TO ETHEL CAROW ROOSEVELT Roosevelt Mss.

St. Augustine, Florida, October 22, 1905

Darling Ethel: I suppose Mother is down at Pine Knot, or rather at Plain
Dealing, now, and that you will join her on Friday. Mother was too sweet
and cunning for the trip, and I think enjoyed it thoroughly. Of course she
was the feature of the occasion everywhere, and it was great fun having her
along. I felt melancholy when she went away, but my two Rough Riders
are still along to bear me company. I have been thinking of Mother and you
and the other children down here last year. Is not St. Augustine lovely?
Last night we had a banquet warranted to make your hair stand on end.
The worst of it was that they were such nice dear people that I simply did
not have the heart to hurt their good feelings by going away, and I had to
stay all through the dreadful banquet itself, and the even more dreadful set
of six little speeches, three of them intended to be funny, with which the
banquet closed. After church today I drove around the city with the Mayor
and the Chairman of the Entertainment Committee, and this afternoon I

1 The Roosevelt Home Club, composed of “several admirers of the President,” was
organized to “preserve the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt and maintain it as a
national landmark ” The house on 20th Street was formally opened to the public on
Roosevelt’s forty-seventh birthday In the next year, 1906, the project failed when
the club failed to meet the mortgage payments At Roosevelt’s order the club itself
disbanded in August 1906.

simply revolted and insisted upon being left alone, so the two Rough Riders,
and Dr. Rixey, and Mr. Loeb and I, went off in a naphtha launch with a very
nice Florida captain, who would not let us pay for it, and said that we were
his guests. He took us over to an island and we went across it and had a
splendid surf bath. I think we stayed m about an hour, and it freshened me
all up. I was beginning to feel rather stale, for these speechmaking trips are
pretty hard work. I have four more days of it and then, thank Heaven, it is
over, and I do not have to go on another regular speechmaking trip at all.

Give my love to blessed Archie and Quentin. Is cunning Archie still
studying his Latin under your guidance, and is Quentin as “happy” and
debonair as ever 5 Your loving father

3710 • TO CECIL ARTHUR SPRING RICE Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, November 1, 1905

Dear Cecil: Your letters are of the greatest pleasure and interest to us, and I
do hope you will keep on writing them. I am especially anxious to hear from
you in reference to the extraordinary events that have been happening in
Russia during the past few days.

Moreover, you often give me the chance to set things right. As soon as I
returned from my trip to the South Mrs. Roosevelt read me your last letters,
including the one in which you describe how Witte had told the French
Ambassador that the United States sympathized with Russia in being hostile
to the Anglo-Japanese alliance. In accordance with your request I saw
Jusserand at once and told him what Witte had said and asked him im-
mediately to cable to his government that so far from this being true, I had
seen the treaty in question before it was ratified, both the English and the
Japanese giving me the substance thereof, and that I had told both nations in
answer to their requests that I entirely approved of the treaty, was glad that
it had been negotiated, and believed that it was advantageous to the peace of
Asia, and therefore, to the peace of the world. By my direction, Taft reiter-
ated this in a talk with the Japanese Prime Minister, Katsura, saying specifi-
cally that we entirely approved of the Japanese position about Korea as set
forth in the Anglo-Japanese treaty, and as acknowledged in the treaty of
Portsmouth. Jusserand told me that he entirely understood my position, and
that he believed the French Government did, but that in any event he would
cable just what I had said. Root also, of course, understands my position and
cordially sympathizes with me. I informed Takahira today of what I had told
Jusserand and shall ask Root to let Durand know also.

Witte impressed me much while he was here, but by no means altogether
pleasantly. He spoke with astonishing freedom of the hopeless character of
the Russian despotism; he said, among other things, that if we took the writ-
ings of the Russian anarchists on the one hand and the writings of Russian
Government officers on the other, we would get at the truth by drawing a

line just about midway between them. I thought this pretty frank, coming
from a man in his position — it was when he was at dinner with me the last
time. He also commented on the brutality of the treatment of political sus-
pects with contempt and indignation, and said that Russia could not possibly
go on in the twentieth century with methods suited only to the sixteenth or
seventeenth. In short he impressed me with being entirely alive to the need
of radical reform in Russia and all the more fitted to do good work because
he was not a doctrinaire. But he also impressed me with being very much
more concerned for his own welfare than for the welfare of his nation, and
as being utterly cynical, untruthful and unscrupulous. He said, with great
frankness, that it was to Russia’s interest to support the Turks, because if the
Bulgarians replaced them they might build up a prosperous Slav empire to the
south, which would be a very disastrous thing, in his judgment, for Russia;
and added contemptuously that this might not be right from a sentimental
standpoint, but that sentimentality had nothing whatever to do with practical
politics.

As for what you tell me about the Czar and the Court generally now
saying that they did not want peace, and that the southern half of Sakhalin
was only offered in the belief that Japan would fight rather than recede about
the indemnity, I regard it as a poor piece of silly bluster. The Czar was firm
about the indemnity, and would undoubtedly have fought rather than have
given in on it. But as a matter of fact I think that through Meyer we would
have gotten a small payment, something like what was given for Alaska, to
assure the return of the north half of the island to Russian rule. The Japanese
behaved very well and with great moderation, and while I think they were
primarily actuated by a wise self-interest in refusing to fight further to get
an indemnity which they would never have gotten, and which would have
cost them untold treasure and blood, yet I think that a certain high and fine
sentiment may have had a part also in determining their action. Of course it is
very easy after the event to say that things should have been done a little
differently, and indeed I personally would have played the game a different
way. I should not have made a bluff that I did not expect to make good, and
I would not have gotten into the position of asking an indemnity which was
sure to be refused, and thereby in the end giving the Russians the simulacrum
of a diplomatic victory. But the Russians are such preposterous people (at
least as regards the diplomats and the governmental authorities in general of
the old regime) and lying and bluffing and breaking faith are so ingrained in
them, that it may well be they would not have given up the south half of
Sakhalin if the Japanese had not made the bluff they did about the indemnity.
I was very much concerned lest my little Japanese friends, the statesmen over
here, would have to kill themselves when they got back to Japan. But I
think now that the Japanese people are taking a more rational view of
matters. It was most to Russia’s interest, but it was also greatly to Japan’s
interest, to make peace.

Takahira came to me the other day and stated that his government was
anxious as to what Japanese dispatches I was going to make public, and would
like the privilege of cutting out one portion of one, at least. But I told him
I did not intend to make public anything relating to the matter at all, but
would let the Japanese and Russians make public whatever they chose. As
far as I am concerned, the thing is done. A good many years hence it may
be amusing, and perhaps profitable, to write a full account of how it was
done. But it is not the time now.

I don’t know what to say as to the relations you set forth as existing be-
tween Germany and England. I think you are entirely right in your statement
of these relations; but I have no idea how to make them better. I have more
than once been greatly exasperated with the Kaiser myself. When I first
came into the Presidency I was inclined to think that the Germans had
serious designs upon South America. But I think I succeeded in impressing on
the Kaiser, quietly and unofficially, and with equal courtesy and emphasis,
that the violation of the Monroe Doctrine by territorial aggrandizement on
his part around the Caribbean meant war, not ultimately, but immediately,
and without any delay. He has always been as nice as possible to me since
and has helped me m every way, and my relations with him and the relations
of the two countries have been, I am happy to say, growing more close and
more friendly. Very possibly these friendly relations will be completely upset
by a tariff fight next spring, or shortly afterwards. But at any rate it is a good
thing to have softened down the spirit of bitterness that was certainly rife
in both countries four years ago I did not like the Kaiser’s attitude in the
Morocco business. But upon my word, the showing that Delcasse has made of
himself since — together with the fact that, as I am now pretty sure, Del-
casse really wished to prevent peace between Russia and Japan, or at least its
coming through American efforts — has made me very uncertain whether the
Kaiser did not have just cause for apprehension from Delcasse’s policy.

As to your own country I have never wavered. I feel that England and
the United States, beyond any other two powers, should be friendly with one
another, and what I can legitimately do to increase this friendliness will be
done. One of the best manifestations of it, by the way, was my insisting
upon having the Alaskan boundary settled right, and taking sufficiently ac-
tive steps to make the British Government understand the seriousness of the
situation.

I am concerned at the hostility between England and Germany. I think
it very unfortunate. I am obliged to say that as far as my own experience
goes, I have heard just as wild talk, just as inflammatory and provocative
talk, among Englishmen as among Germans. Whether anything can ever be
done to reduce the feeling I cannot say. If I can do it I certainly will.

You speak of my being able to help keep the peace of Europe. If at any
time I see where I can thus help I shall most certainly try to help. But I do
not wish to assume the position of an international “Meddlesome Mattie,” or

to make myself ridiculous by striving to interfere where my interference is
not desired or would be wholly ineffective. I need not say to you that there
is no more grotesquely foolish error than to suppose that, because under
certain circumstances one has achieved a given object, this same object can
always be then achieved, even though the circumstances be different I have
made peace once, because I refused to act until the right moment, and then
used every ounce of influence at my command to secure what I desired. It
may be that sometime under somewhat similar conditions I shall be able to
make peace again; but I am not at all sure; and I certainly do not intend to
go into peacemaking as a regular business. It is quite enough to keep this
nation on an even keel, and to prevent its being led into doing anything out
of the way on the one hand, or showing weakness on the other. I have great
faith m my countrymen; but I believe that all of us must normally do our
duty at home before striving to do too much abroad.

Give my love to Mrs. Springy. I do wish we could get you both over
here. Ever yours

cr It Has Been a Great Session ”

November 1905— July 1906

3711 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November i, 1905

Dear Cabot : I arrived home yesterday and of course am literally swamped
with work, but your letter and Talbot’s are so important 1 that I called in
Root at once to consult him about it. I feel strongly, and Root feels even
more strongly, that I ought not to go into the business of a question of
veracity by denying a statement of this particular kind. It is sometimes
necessary to make such a denial, but it is always undesirable unless the neces-
sity is very great and unless the denial can be absolutely clear-cut. In this
case it could not be clear-cut.

I agree with all that you say of Whitney and with all that you say of
Draper. I think Whitney a very undesirable statesman of a very undesirable
type, and Draper a very fine fellow. If I were in Massachusetts I should vote
the Republican ticket with delight at having so good a ticket for which to
vote; and if I were not President I would stump Massachusetts from one end
to the other on its behalf.

Whitney has no business to quote without its full context what I said, and
I do not believe I ever used the expression “continental free trade”; but I
am inclined to think that in the conversation with Whitney, at which you
were present, I spoke of Senator Proctor’s statement that while he would be
against any small measure of reciprocity, he would personally be glad to
support a measure for complete commercial union between Canada and the
United States, and said that I would be content to take that or any other
measure of reciprocity upon which we could get the two countries to agree. I
stated positively, however, that in my judgment Canada had not the slightest
intention of entering into any reciprocity treaty with us of any kind, and
that it seemed to me that the action of the Canadian Government clearly
showed this to be the fact; and my remembrance is clear that Whitney
acquiesced in this statement and said that it was his judgment, too, that
nothing could be done with Canada until we first tried whether we could
get a treaty with Newfoundland. I furthermore said that I did not intend to
go into a hopeless effort to do something that I wanted, and that at that time
I did not think that any reciprocity treaty with Canada could be negotiated
which would be accepted by both the Canadian Government and by our
Government as a whole.

It seems to me that no advantage whatever would come from making
such a statement as the above, which would practically be not a denial but
an explanation, and therefore it would be folly and would do damage for me
to answer Talbot’s letter. It further seems to me that your course is the right
course viz., to say that you know that I am hearty in my support of the
Republican ticket as a matter of course; that both Guild and Draper are my

‘Thomas Talbot was at that time chairman of the Republican State Committee of

Massachusetts.

personal and political friends, with whom I have always cordially worked;
that the Massachusetts Senators have always been in entire agreement with
my policy on reciprocity; and that there is no room whatever to misinterpret
this policy, because I have set it forth at length in my first message to
Congress (which I herewith enclose) and that I have never in public or in
private said anything inconsistent with this message. 2 Ever yours

3712 • TO WILLIAM ZEBINA RIPLEY Roosevelt MSS .

Private Washington, November 4, 1905

My dear Dr . Ripley ; 1 I have read your articles with real interest, as they
appeared. It was a pleasure to find that they had been written. Perhaps you
can help me most by going over the whole matter with Senator Crane. He
is one of the very best men in public life, but he comes from a locality where
there is very little demand for rate legislation and he may not appreciate the
need there is for it in other localities.

With regard, Sincerely yours

3713 * to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, November 6, 1905

Secretary Root: Senator Cullom has just handed me the enclosed papers.
He states that his information is that the Cubans are behaving with scandalous

8 Henry M. Whitney, Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Massachu-
setts, was campaigning on a platform favoring tariff reduction and Canadian reci-
procity. In his speeches, Whitney constantly referred to a conference he had had
in 1904 with Roosevelt and Lodge. He claimed that the President, at that time, had
spoken emphatically in favor of tariff revision and reciprocity. On November 15,
1905, after the election m which the Republican ticket of Curtis Guild, Jr., for
governor and Eben S. Draper for lieutenant governor was victorious, Roosevelt
held a conference with a delegation of Massachusetts shoe manufacturers who
urged tariff reduction They maintained before the President that the unsatisfactory
condition of the eastern shoe industry was due to the high tariff on hides, the growth
of the industry in the Midwest, and the loss of trade with Canada. In answering,
Roosevelt avoided reference to his future tariff policy, but forcefully denied Whit-
ney’s interpretation of the 1904 conference. Later in November Whitney made public
his correspondence with the President (see No. 3729). Editorial comment, for the
most part, agreed that Roosevelt had been at least intemperate in his letters to
Whitney and m the conference with the Massachusetts delegation.

1 William Zebina Ripley, Harvard economist, transportation expert for the United
States Industrial Commission, 1 900-1 901; author of many incisive studies of the

railroad and corporation problem of which his Railroads Rates and Regulation and
Railroads: Finance and Organization are outstanding. Like Jenks and Dill, he ap-
parently contributed much to Roosevelt’s thought. In September and October 1905,
the Atlantic Monthly published serially his article, “President Roosevelt’s Railway
Policy.” For thoughtful readers, Ripley’s quiet, competent analysis was doubtless
more convincing than the contemporaneous articles of Ray Stannard Baker.

lack of good faith to the Americans domg business in Cuba in the matter of
giving preference to Germans and other of our mercantile competitors over
American businessmen; and he also says that from what he learns the Cubans
are paying no heed to the proper sanitation of their cities and that some day
there will be a return of the fever epidemics. I have called Senator Cullom’s
attention to the misconduct on our part in the refusal to ratify the Isle of
Pines treaty. I have explained to him that it is very hard for us to ask equity
when we do not do equity, and that it is clearly our duty to ratify the treaty
in question. We do not want the Isle of Pines, it would simply be a nuisance
to us. We would not know how to govern it; and it has been worse than
foolish on our part to fail formally to give the Isle of Pines back to Cuba,
which is now administering it. 1

3714 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT ROOSevelt MsS.

Washington, November 6, 1905

Dear Kermit: Just a line, for I really have nothing to say this week. I have
caught up with my work. One day we had a rather forlorn little poet,
Madison Cawein 1 and his nice wife in at lunch. They made me feel quite
badly by being so grateful at my having mentioned him in what I fear was
a very patronizing, and indeed almost supercilious way, as having written an
occasional good poem — that was in my review of Robinson. I am much
struck by Robinson’s two poems which you sent Mother. What a queer,
mystical creature he is! I did not understand one of them — that about the
gardens — and I do not know that I hke either of them quite as much as
some of those in The Children of the Night. But he certainly has the real
spirit of poetry in him. Whether he can make it come out, I am not quite sure.

Prince Louis of Battenberg has been here and I have been very much
pleased with him. He is a really good admiral, and in addition he is a well-read
and cultivated man and it was charming to talk with him. We had him and his
nephew, Prince Alexander, a midshipman, to lunch alone with us, and we
really enjoyed having them. At the state dinner he sat between me and
Bonaparte, and I could not help smiling to myself and thinking that here
was this British Admiral seated beside the American Secretary of the Navy —
the American Secretary of the Navy being the grandnephew of Napoleon
and the grandson of Jerome, King of Westphalia; while the British Admiral
was the grandson of a Hessian General who was the subject of King Jerome

1 A Cuban-Amencan treaty, negotiated in 1903 and renegotiated in 1904, granted to
Cuba clear title to the Isle of Pines The Treaty of Pans had left ambiguous the
status of this island to which Cuba had convincing claims. The lobbymg of American
investors and the apathy of the United States Senate delayed ratification of the
treaty until 1925, see Fitzgibbon, Cuba and the United States, 1 900-1 <>35, pp 94-105.

1 Madison Julius Cawein, a Kentucky poet with a deep interest m forests and wood
sprites; author of The Vale of Tempe (1905), Nature-Notes and Impressions (1906);
The Giant and the Star (1909).

and served under Napoleon, and then, by no means creditably, deserted him
in the middle of the battle of Leipzig.

I am off to vote tonight. Ever yours

3715 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 8, 1905

Dear Cabot : In all the elections this year nothing pleased me quite as much
as the elections in Massachusetts, both as to Guild and Draper. I have written
them both. It was with the greatest difficulty that I kept out of the fight.
The results elsewhere are mixed. Hearst’ s vote was astounding. Both in Ohio
and Pennsylvania the Republicans brought their fate on their own heads.
Bonaparte has led the Republicans to an important victory in Maryland. In
New Jersey it looks as if there had been a genuine triumph of the right kind
of Republicanism within the party itself. The elections in Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Indiana and Illinois seem to show that as yet there is no general
drift toward Democracy. In New York it is hard to say whether Odellism or
Tammanyism is more thoroughly discredited. 1

1 Most significant of the elections of 1905 were those in Ohio, Maryland, and New
Jersey; Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and New York City. In Ohio Governor Herrick,
with the active support of Foraker and Cox, headed the Republican ticket. Taft,
speaking at Akron on October 22, defined his own and Roosevelt’s views on the
Ohio situation. He defended Herrick, attacked Foraker for his opposition to
the President’s railroad program, and denounced Cox. This speech revealed the
Republican schism by which the Democrats profited. Their gubernatorial candidate
defeated Herrick, they gained seats m bom houses of the legislature, seriously
jeopardizing Foraker’s chances for re-election to the Senate; they won the mayoralty
contests m Cincinnati and Cleveland. Cox, routed m Cincinnati, announced his
retirement, regrettably brief, from politics. His defeat, like Herrick’s, cost anti-
Admimstration Republicans more prestige than it gained for the Democrats. The
policies of Roosevelt and Taft, most observers concluded, were vindicated by the
results.

In Maryland Gorman and his followers had campaigned primarily on a platform
of Negro disenfranchisement. Opposing this policy, Democratic Governor Warfield
and the Republicans, led by Bonaparte, won enough seats to control the legislature,
while four of Gorman’s county leaders were badly defeated.

In New Jersey, the “New Idea” Republicans, mobilized by Mark Fagan, George
L. Record, and Everett Colby, had won decisive victories over the Old Guard m
the primaries The Republican landslide in the Assembly elections gave them a new
strength which permitted the acceleration of their aggressive campaigns for reforms.

In Philadelphia Reform Mayor John Weaver, an Independent endorsed by Elihu
Root, defeated the candidate or the Republican machine. Indianapolis elected mayor
Republican Charles A. Bookwalter who, supported by Beveridge, campaigned for
Roosevelt’s national policies. In New York City Hearst ran a close second to Tam-
many’s McClellan. There Roosevelt doubtless was pleased by the fate of Odell After
engineermg the nomination of Ivins on the Republican ticket, Odell deserted his
candidate and swung Republican votes to Hearst who m return supported six
Republican Assembly candidates. This bargain, devastating to Ivins’ chances, cost

Edith and I both liked that preface immensely. Now we are looking
forward to seeing you and Nannie on here. Ever yours

[Handwritten] P.S. I wish George Meyer had gone straight back to St.
Petersburg when the trouble started three weeks ago. 2

3716 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 8, 1905

My dear Senator: Indiana has done splendidly. I shall congratulate Shaffer
when I see him. I have the recommendation for joint statehood for two states
out of the four Territories in my message. There is evidently an active in-
trigue against it going on. 1 Sincerely yours

37 I 7 • TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 8, 1905

My dear Sir George: Sometimes I get discouraged by the enormous amount
of utterly worthless written matter published in America, in all kinds of
forms, from Sunday newspapers through magazines to books. It is such a
veritable ocean of worthlessness that one tends to lose sight of some really
good things that are published. I send you herewith three little volumes that
have appeared during the last year, each of which seems to have some real
stuff m it. The From Epicurus to Christ 1 seems to me to go pretty well down

Odell much of his remaining prestige with Manhattan Republicans who feared Hearst
as much as they disliked Tammany

Even where Republicans lost, Roosevelt could find some satisfaction in these
results The nation-wide rejection of “bossism,” much of the press maintained, re-
flected the popularity of the principles of the Square Deal. Perhaps more important,
the victims of popular indignation were, without exception, personal opponents of
the President The party seemed more than ever to be his.
a The “trouble” was the revolution of 1905.

1 Roosevelt proposed joint statehood for Oklahoma and the Indian Territory and
for Arizona and New Mexico. The second proposal, dear to Beveridge’s heart, be-
came a major issue m the Senate There Foraker and other Republican spokesmen
for Arizona mining interests, opposing joint statehood, amended Beveridge’s bill to
provide for separate referenda m Arizona and New Mexico. The prejudice of most
of the population of Arizona against the Mexicans in New Mexico assured the defeat
of the plan Roosevelt, in spite of his initial support of Beveridge, lost his enthusiasm
for the senator’s cause. For this phase of the joint statehood controversies, see Bowers,
Beveridge , pp 235-236

1 William De Witt Hyde, From Epicurus to Christ ; a Study in the Principles of

Personality (New York, 1904). Hyde, a Congregational minister, was president of
Bowdoin College, 1885-1917.

7 1

toward the heart of things in getting at the worth, even in very brief fashion,
of those ancient philosophies which stand at the base of our present moral
structure. The other two volumes — Mrs. Dunn’s Cicero in Maine and
Crothers’ Gentle Reader 2 — deal more lightly with lighter subjects, for they
are only collections of essays; but I have enjoyed them so that I am sure I
shall like to reread them now and then. I send them to you on the off-chance
of your liking them.

I have just finished a fortnight’s trip in the Southern States, where I was
received with the utmost enthusiasm. As far as I know I did not flinch from
one of my principles; but I did do my best to show the southern people not
only that I was earnestly desirous of doing what was best for them, but that
I felt a profound sympathy and admiration for them, and they met me half
way. This does not mean any political change at all in the South, and it
means but a slight permanent change in the attitude of the southerners; but
I think it does mean this slight permanent change, and it marks one more
step toward what I believe will some day come about — the complete re-
union of the two sections. Always yours

3718 • TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, November 9, 190?

My dear Senator Allison: Many thanks for your letter. You give me just the
suggestions I want. But I wish you would say what you think as to the pos-
sibility of taking up the question of revision at all. My own judgment, very
reluctantly arrived at, is that it cannot be done at present simply because the
enormous majority of your colleagues either decline to take up the subject
at all, or wish to approach it only as the Massachusetts reciprocity people
wish to approach it — that is, from the standpoint of having the tariff revised
purely with the interests of their own particular localities in view. The tariff
is of course peculiarly a subject upon which Congress must take the initiative;
and the last thing I want to do is to get into such a position as Cleveland got
into when he succeeded in forcing tariff revision, only to get a bill so bad
that he would not sign it, and yet let it become a law, so that the whole pro-
ceeding worked great mischief to the people at large and helped split his
party m two. When, after all my efforts, I am unable to get even an approach
to unanimity of action on such a subject as the tariff with Germany, when
the leaders of the House are a unit against touching the tariff at this time,
and when of those few members who wish to touch the tariff no two from
different localities agree as to what should be done, I have felt rather at sea
as to the possibility of doing anything. Sincerely yours

“Samuel McChord Crothers, The Gentle Reader (Boston, 1903). For long the
minister of the First Unitarian Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Crothers set his
sensible views of life before a larger audience in essays distinguished by their quiet
humor and discernment.

3 7 1 9 ' TO NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November io, 1905

Dear Murray: With all that you have said m your last two letters I am in
substantial agreement, save only as to Massachusetts, where I felt that the
movement against the Republican party was tainted very deeply with hypoc-
risy and complicated with the selfish ignorance which would treat the tariff
question as one which can be settled only from the Massachusetts standpoint.
It is a matter of deep gratification to me to feel that in the general result I
should have been even a small factor.

Now, as to the specific matter. I do not like Austen Fox because I do not
trust in him or believe in him. I think it is extremely hypocritical of him to
keep writing me as he does on all kinds of matters, the implication being that
he is one of my supporters; whereas he has always done his feeble best to
defeat me, and has stood, in effect, against the very causes for which I have
stood. If Fox comes to the Jerome dinner there will be an element of pure
comedy in it, for he has stood for Tammany and not for Jerome. It would
simply be an impossibility for me to get on to any such dinner at present, or
to compose the kind of speech which alone I should be willing to make on
such an occasion. At this time it would be a simple physical impossibility for
me to prepare the speech. Moreover, I would be a little doubtful what to
say. I did quietly everything I could for Jerome, and before Flammer with-
drew in his favor I had informed all my friends and had the machine informed
that every Republican should be for him whether the Republicans nominated
him or not. 1 1 would have written a letter for him if it would not have been
thought that I would then have had to write a letter for Ivins also; and while
I thought Ivins was much the best man who was up for Mayor, I felt the real
conflict was between McClellan and Hearst, and did not feel it was necessary
to take part as between them. Moreover, while I would have heartily sup-
ported Jerome if I were at liberty to speak publicly, and did give him all the
support I could, and felt it was very important to elect him, there are plenty
of things about him that I do not like and I do not want to say something
which Jerome is quite capable of using as an argument for himself in some
totally different contingency. You doubtless remember Jerome’s conduct at
the Hungarian dinner on the East Side to me, and on certain other occasions
— as, for instance, his efforts to trick Cortelyou in the matter of campaign
contributions only a little over a year ago. He is a man whom at the last
election and preceding election I supported to the extent of my power, and

1 William Travers Jerome, to emphasize his mdependence of the New York City
machine, had secured renommation for attorney general by circulating a petition.
The Republican candidate, Charles A. Flammer, then withdrew. Although the elec-
tion law did not permit Flammer’s name to be scratched from the ballot, most
Republicans voted for Jerome, who received a substantial plurality in spite of the
reputation he had begun to acquire for favoring “reform” only when it did not
jeopardize the interests of railroad, traction, and insurance companies

under certain circumstances he can be very useful; but he has very distinct
moral limitations and it is necessary to be most cautious in acting with him.
Always yoms

3720 * to paul morton Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November 1 1, 1905

Dear Paul: I have your letter of the 10th instant.

It seems to me that Shonts is utterly mistaken in the position he is assum-
ing. I want him to assume the attitude toward Taft that, when Taft was
Governor of the Philippines, he, Taft, assumed toward Root Taft had an
entirely free hand in the Philippines, just as Shonts will have a free hand on
the Isthmus. If Taft had been afraid that Root would get the credit for what
he, Taft, did in the Philippines, and had insisted upon reporting direct to the
President, he would have made a very serious mistake from every standpoint.
He would have harmed the administration, and what is much more impor-
tant, he would have harmed the country, and finally he would not have
gotten the credit which he actually did get. Taft’s position m the Philippines
was much more difficult than that of Shonts at Panama, for Taft’s colleagues
could at any time control and override him. Shonts has much more a one-
man power than Taft had. Yet look at the work Taft did and how his repu-
tation grew because of the way he did the work! I think that one reason it
grew was because he was thinking of doing the work primarily, and only
secondarily, if at all, of his own reputation. If Shonts will devote his thought
to doing the job, if he will do everything that in him lies to make it a suc-
cess, his reputation will take care of itself and the credit will surely go to
him. I do not like a man’s wishing to report to me instead of acting normally
through one of the Cabinet officers. I have already encountered men who,
in Porto Rico and in the Philippines, wanted to thus report to me direct and
to thus escape being under any control. At Panama one of the main troubles
with Admiral Walker was that he wished to avoid being under any Cabinet
officer. It may be that I shall have to reverse this rule about Panama, but as
yet I feel that it would be against the interests of the work to take this course.
I shall see Shonts and Taft both. I shall endeavor to get them to work to-
gether. A rupture will be a bad thing for the administration, it will be a bad
thing for Taft, and it will also be at least as bad a thing for Shonts. That it
will be a great chagrin and disappointment to me is of less consequence. It
may be that Taft has not given Shonts all the credit he should give, and I
shall go over this with Taft; but certainly so far Shonts has had an absolutely
free hand and it seems to me that it behooves him to think merely of his
work. As I have said above, if he does this, and good-humoredly and loyally
does all that in him lies to bring that work to a successful conclusion, he may
be sure that the repute he individually gains from it will be high. Let him

think of his work first; his reputation will then take care of itself. Faithfully
yoms

3721 • TO ROBERT BRIDGES Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 1 1, 1905

Dear Bridges: You have given me just the information I wanted. I am going
to write to Mr. Yard 1 and say to him that if he takes Miss Velvin’s book 3
and is willing to make her a small advance I shall agree to reimburse him,
Miss Velvin of course to know nothing about it.

I am much pleased at what you tell me about the reviews of Outdoor
Pastimes . When you get enough of them send them on to me. I am particu-
larly pleased that they like that last chapter, “At Home.” You know my fail-
ing; as that verse writer, Irwin, put it, “my practice is to preach,” and in
that last chapter I was really trying to preach, but to do it in a thoroughly
disguised form. I am immensely pleased with the getup of the limited edition.
It is just as it ought to be. Always yours

3722 • to curtis guild, junior Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, November 12, 1905

Dear Curtis: I have received your letter. You are very welcome to make it
public. As yet there is no sign whatever of a willingness on the part of the
leaders of the party in Congress or of a majority of the members in Congress
to take up the subject of tariff revision. On the contrary, unless there is
a change in the attitude of the two houses on this subject, absolutely nothing
can be done about it at present. For instance, Maine, Vermont, and New
Hampshire, through their Senators and Representatives, stand diametrically
opposed to Massachusetts on this matter. Now, of course nothing could
be more foolish than for me to go into a revision movement, or rather to try
to go into a revision movement, and receive not one particle of effective back-
ing. West of the Mississippi the proposal of free hides is greeted with deri-
sion. I told some of the members that I thought we could get free shoes if
we got free hides. The response was that they did not care for free shoes. If
they got free hides they wanted a very heavy cut in woolens. I very much

‘Robert Sterling Yard, editor of the New York Herald , 1891-1900; editor-in-chief
of Moffat, Yard and Co., 1905-1911. Yard answered Roosevelt that he would advance
money to Miss Velvin himself.

a Ellen Velvin, Behind the Scenes with Wild Animals (New York, 1906). This book
is dedicated to Roosevelt “in appreciation of His Love of Truth and Love of
Nature.” Miss Velvin’s own “love of investigation” took her behind the scenes of
circuses at the New York Hippodrome and of zoological parks in England and the
United States.

Roosevelt, in an appendix to Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, quotes
two letters from Miss Velvin in which she informs the President of the cowardly
nature of the puma.

doubt if we can get free wood pulp. We ought to get it, but there would be
any amount of opposition even to that, in Maine, for instance.

What a trump Draper is' I think he is one of the very best fellows I
know. If Douglas comes here as it is reported he will on Wednesday with
the boot and shoe manufacturers, I am going to make substantially the en-
closed statement to him. Faithfully youts

3723 • TO THEODORE ROOSEVF.LT, JUNIOR Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 12, 1905

Dear T ed: I was very glad to get your letter and liked it very much. It was
nice of Octave Thanet to take you to the theater and I am glad you went
with her.

This morning at breakfast I took up the paper and said: “Oh Lord! it’s
too bad that Pensy won.” Whereupon Quentin remarked m a meditative
aside. “I suppose ‘Pensy’ is a democrat.”

I was glad to see you played on your Eleven on Saturday, and apparently
did well. Of course I hope you get into the Yale game, but it doesn’t make
much real difference for you have been on the team and at the training table
and you have evidently shown that you are a game player. Orville Frantz was
here at lunch the other day and he said that you had been playing with just
the right spirit. Still, though I would not have had you fail to play, and
think it was a mighty good thing for you, I sympathize with mother in be-
ing glad that after next Saturday your playing will be through!

Do write me at once how you want those moose horns, and what I am
to tell Dr. Lambert — that is, unless you prefer to write to him direct. Also
let me know how the hour examinations came out, and whether you feel satis-
fied with the way your studies are going. Your loving father

3724 • TO RAY STANNARD BAKER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 13, 190 5

My dear Mr. Baker: Many thanks for your letter of the nth instant. I am
inclined to think that it would be better if the Commission had the power
to fix a definite instead of a maximum rate, but the Attorney General in his
opinion, which of course you have seen, expresses the opinion that the maxi-
mum rate is certainly constitutional, whereas it is not certain by any means
that the definite rate would be constitutional. The Supreme Court’s attitude
is more than doubtful on it. Now, the one thing I do not want is to have a law
passed and then declared unconstitutional. The maximum rate might not
reach cases like that you quote. It might not reach such a case as that of
the Standard Oil Company in Connecticut, with which you are probably
familiar. But it will do a good deal. Indeed, m my judgment it will meet the
immense majority of the evils. I have gone into the matter at length' with

the Attorney General and doubt if it is safe for me to say anything about a
definite rate.

Of course m the case you mention, the evil could probably be reached by
the Commission’s consistently lowering one of the rates in question until the
differential was abolished. This would be a clumsy way to get at it, I know;
but I am inclined to believe we should have first a law that is sm ely consti-
tutional. Then if it is found desirable, you would pass the definite rate law as
an amendment, and even if the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional,
we would then still have the first law safe. I think I should of course sign
a definite rate law, but if I can avoid it I do not wish to be responsible for
a law which is null. 1 Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] Senator Knox is inclined to the exact view Moody takes. 2

3725 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 15, 1905

My dear Mr, Secretary: The Chinese are not showmg a good spirit. I think
that we should have as strong a naval force as possible concentrated on the
Chinese shore, and as speedily as possible. Will you go over the matter with
Secretary Root, and meanwhile find out from Admiral Converse how many
vessels can be sent to China and how soon> We ought to be prepared for any
contingencies there. 1 Sincerely yours

3726 * to Paul morton Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November 15, 1905

Dear Paul: Since last writing you Shonts himself gave me a copy of my
printed circular of May 9th last. I had forgotten its exact terms. It is of value
because it shows that there was not only no misunderstanding between Shonts
and myself as to his responsibility when he took the position, but no possi-
bility of such misunderstanding. I had accepted m good faith the statement,
which I know Shonts has made in good faith, that he misunderstood my
attitude about giving him absolute control, and that he did not know that
he was to work under Taft. But I had at the time forgotten that such mis-
understanding was wholly impossible in view of my printed and published
circular to the Commission, a copy of which was in Shonts’ hands and was
considered by him at the time of his acceptance and beginning work. In this

1 In this and his other letters to Baker (see Numbers 3732, 3737, 3750), Roosevelt de-
fined with unusual precision his current views on railroad legislation. Stated also in
his annual message of December 5 (State Papers , Nat. Ed XV, 274-282), these views
were of immediate importance foi the shaping of the Hepburn Bill by the 59th
Congress See Appendix II

a Knox had expiessed his inclination in a long, careful speech on November 3
before the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce,

1 The strength of the Asiatic Fleet was mci eased by two cruisers and three gunboats.

circular (of which I enclose a copy) I say as distinctly and unequivocally as
possible that the work is to be done under the supervision and direction of
the Secretary of War. There could be no clearer statement and it left no
ground for misapprehension. I may add that I have gone over the matter with
Root and he goes even farther than I do and feels that it is a simple absurdity
to discuss having the work done without the supervision of some Cabinet
officer. It would surely result in disaster. Shonts will have as free a hand as
Taft had m the Philippines. More than that he is not entitled to. He will have
in Panama as free a hand as I have as President. I can do nothing in legislation
unless a majority of both houses of Congress agrees. I can do nothing in ap-
pointments unless a majority in the Senate agrees. I can do nothing in treaties,
that is in foreign policies, unless two thirds of the Senate agree. In other
words, every man has got to work with others, and while his sphere of work
must, if possible, be clearly defined and he must accept responsibility and be
given power, yet it is simply out of the question for him to think that he
can always have conditions just exactly as he wishes them to be. The presi-
dent of a railroad has to pay heed to the board of directors. Every man in
business or out of business has to pay heed to other men or other bodies of
men. Always yours

3727 • TO NEVADA NORTHROP STRANAHAN ROOSeVelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, November 17, 1905

Dear Stranahan: It seems to me that these revelations about Mr. Odell’s con-
duct render it impossible that he should continue to be leader of the Repub-
lican party, if the Republican party is to stand as it should stand. I cannot
actively interfere, for I was elected President and not boss, and it is not my
business to dictate as to the management of the Republican party; and under
any ordinary circumstances I should not, even to as close a friend as you are
and in this purely confidential manner, say anything on such a subject. But
there is no question that the testimony by Mr. Hyde about Mr. Odell, and
Mr. Odell’s answers, have left a very ugly impression that Mr. Odell was
directly or indirectly using his official position for purposes of private gain. 1

1 Testifying before the Armstrong Committee, James Hazen Hyde, who had inherited
a controlling interest in the Equitable Company, accused Odell of blackmailing the
United States Shipbuilding Company, which Equitable in large part owned. Odell,
in August 1904, had brought suit to recover losses he incurred m United States
Shipbuilding investments. Earlier, in March, a bill, repealing the charter of the Ship-
building Company’s parent concern, had been introduced with Odell’s blessing m the
New York Senate. The governor, Hyde claimed, through Harriman had warned
Hyde to reimburse him or face both the suit and the loss of the charter. As a result
of this threat, Hyde’s counsel advised the settlement which was made. The bill died
m the Senate. Odell denied that he had threatened Hyde but he admitted that he
had approved the bill. He argued that the lapse of time between the introduction of

It is hard for me to come to any other conclusion; and from what I hear I
am satisfied that the best people in the Republican party — those who are
in it only from motives of principle — are affected by the testimony as I
was. Under such circumstances there must either be a radical change m the
management of the party or else we shall go down to deserved defeat. This
is not a mere question of “bossism” or “revolt against the machine,” or any
thing of that kind, it is a question relating to the bedrock principle of popular
government — that is, to financial honesty and decency m public men. Mr.
Odell has been highly honored by the Republican party m the past His
association in any way with the party at present is to its damage. He should
of his own accord abandon every effort to identify himself with it. I origi-
nally thought very well of him and have been shocked and horrified by these
disclosures. When I first heard rumors about these matters I dismissed them
as incredible.

You are quite welcome to show this confidentially to Fish and to Higgins,
but to no one else; and Mr. Fish and Mr. Higgins must understand that they
are not to repeat a word of what I have said as I can take no public action
in the matter. But as they have both known that my relations with Odell
have been friendly in the past, I do not think they ought to remain m ig-
norance of how I feel in view of these late revelations. Faithfully yours

3728 ■ to paul morton Roosevelt Mss .

Private Washington, November 18, 1905

Dear Paul: Mr. Shonts gave me that circular himself and evidently under-
stood that it applied to the new commission just as much as to the old. But
if the break comes I think it will come on an entirely different line from
what I had anticipated, that is, Stevens has just the same feeling about not
being interfered with by Shonts that Shonts has about Taft, and Stevens is
doing most admirable work, I am more afraid of Shonts not hitting it off
with Stevens than I am of Shonts not hitting it off with Taft. This is for
your private information. Always yours

the bill and the inception of the suit demonstrated his innocence. Since the arrange-
ments for bringing suit could have been made at any time before August, Odell’s
denial was unconvincing

Hyde also testified that Harriman, in the hope that he might gam personal
control of the Equitable Company m the absence of Hyde, had joined Odell in
promising to use his influence to have Hyde appointed ambassador to France In
return Hyde was to contribute to Republican campaign funds. Odell, admitting
that he had recommended Hyde foi the diplomatic post, denied that he had done so
for any ulterior reason. Like his other denial, this was unconvincing. The press
shared Roosevelt’s view that Odell’s political career should be terminated. Clearly,
Odell and Harriman, without the President’s knowledge, had played fast and loose
with the controversial French ambassadorship

3 7 2 9 ' T0 henry melville whitney Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 18, 1905

Sir: I have your letter of the 17th instant. 1 In view of my previous experience
with you I am obliged to state, with regret, that it is out of the question for
me to grant you another interview. In this letter of November 1 7th, m which
you make this request, you furnish additional evidence of the wisdom of my
refusing to communicate further with you, my refusal being based upon your
evident inability to understand, or determination to misrepresent, what I say.
In this letter you state that you “regret more than anything else in connec-
tion with this matter that the righteous cause of reciprocity with neighboring
countries, of so much value to our people, and to the whole of the human
race, is not to have the endorsement of your (my) great name, and the bene-
fit of your (my) potent aid.”

Nothing that I have said at any time has given you the slightest warrant
for making this assertion; and when, m the very letter asking for an interview
and denying that you ever willfully misrepresented my previous remarks, you
incorporate another deliberate misstatement, you can hardly wonder that I
decline to see you, nor would there in any event be the slightest point in
such an interview. In your speeches you pretended to quote from memory
certain statements made in the course of a long conversation occurring nearly
a year previous. You quoted portions of what I said, even as to these portions,
your language was inaccurate, and all the context was suppressed. As a result
you have completely misrepresented me, as in the sentence of your present
letter which I quote above. It matters little whether this was due to a delib-
erate purpose of deception, or to a lack, in both your companions and your-
self, of a nice sense of propriety and of the power of exact thinking and of
correct apprehension and repetition of what was said. In either event I feel
that it would serve no useful purpose again to see you or further to corre-
spond with you.

You are at liberty to make this correspondence public if you choose. 2
Fours truly

3730 • TO JOHN ALLISON Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, November 18, 1907

My dear Chancellor : 1 Many thanks for your letter and your kind words.
Now, just a word as to what you say about Secretary Shaw and his “stand-
ing pat and keeping the money in the Treasury out of the hands of stock
gamblers, plungers, and speculators, so as to teach them a wholesome lesson.”
As bad a stock gambler, plunger, and speculator as I know is Mr. Lawson;

*See Lodge, II, 209-210.

2 See No 3711

1 John Allison, Nashville, Tennessee, judge of chancery.

and though he has done some good service by turning state’s evidence on
former confederates, he is on the whole the most mischievous of his tribe
now in existence, and his appeal and the appeals of men like him is that they
shall receive assistance from the Government by the Government’s refrain-
ing to take action which in time of stress it always has taken and always must
take. There are bear speculators as well as bull speculators, and there is not
the slightest moral difference between them. Of course, one crowd howl
against the Treasury for acting, and the other for not acting. The business
of the Secretary is to disregard both crowds, and to be as entirely indifferent
to the threats of a man like Lawson as to blandishments of Lawson’s ex-allies,
probable future allies, but temporary opponents. I need not say that Lawson’s
pretense of entire disinterestedness would not take in even an overtrustful
child of six who is acquainted with the facts. Mr. Shaw will not act for any
slight strain or in any slight emergency. He will let a good deal of suffering
take place before he will act; but if it becomes necessary he cannot afford
to allow a panic to take place, which might involve the whole country,
merely because the panic was originally started by certain people of whose
antics he thoroughly disapproves 2 If a pickpocket starts a panic in a theatre
for the purpose of picking pockets in the rush, and the panic becomes seri-
ous, he is in as much danger as anybody else of being trodden to death. To
stop the panic saves him incidentally, but we cannot on that account refuse
to stop it. Sincerely yours

3731 * TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 19, 1905

Dear Ted. Good for you 1 Of course I am sorry that Yale beat us, but I am
very glad you made the team and I am not merely glad but very proud that
you should have played as you evidently did play in the game. Of course I
only know what the papers say but they are united in praising you for hav-
ing put up an exceedingly resolute and plucky fight and they say that in
spite of being lighter than any other man in the line on either team you
nevertheless held your own well until you got groggy under the battering

2 The autumnal crop mo\ ements had, as usual, made the New York money market
tight National banks in New York City had for several weeks reported deficits in
their legal reserves A shortage of call money m Wall Street had provoked a con-
tinuing, but not alarming, “bear” market. Many bankers and brokers, particularly the
“bull” operators for whom Lawson spoke, were demanding relief from the Treasury
Department. Shaw had in similar situations m the past intervened to prevent the
development of panic. In 1905 he could have stabilized the market by returning to
the New York national banks Treasury funds he had withdrawn m July. He de-
clared, however, that he saw no need for such action Shaw’s estimate proved to be
correct. By the end of November, as western demands for money waned, the market
recovered. For a scholarly account of Shaw’s policies in this and similar autumnal
emergencies, see Andrew Piatt Andrew, “The Treasury and the Banks under
Secretary Shaw,” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 21 519-568 (August 1907), see
also No. 2639, note 3

plays directed at you. If one of the Boston papers gave a fuller account of
the game I wish you would send it to me. I only hope there will not be any
feeling caused in your class by the prominence the newspapers have given to
you. Of course they have written you up in a way that they would not have
written you up if you had not been the President’s son; but I hope this will
not cause any feeling, and I do not believe it will, because you have evidently
borne yourself perfectly naturally and honestly and all you have to do is to
keep a sharp lookout that you do not get the “big head,” and to mind your
own business.

Incidentally I very sincerely hope that now that football is over you will
be able to do better in your studies. A record of C’s with an occasional D
does not allow much margin for accidents, and while I think it was entirely
satisfactory during the time you were playing football, I hope you can im-
prove upon it a little now. We are eagerly looking forward to seeing you
when you come down for Thanksgiving. I have a direct personal interest in
your coming down, because darling mother is nervous about my being alone,
or at least the only man, in that little house at Pine Knot, where I shall be
as absolutely safe as if I were a small boy in a trundle bed. I simply will not
have such a ridiculous thing done as to bring down secret-service men and
as I won’t do this mother says she will not feel easy unless you are down.
Exactly who would attack me, or how, in the dead of night, when I am
upstairs lying down in some unknown corner of the house, anyone would
find me, or what earthly good your presence, asleep in some other quarter
of the house would be, it is not worth while trying to inquire. Darling
mother! I feel ashamed to have written this; she is so tenderhearted about me
or any of you children.

Mother and Ethel were very indignant about Yale, and Mother especially
was inclined to take a very dark view of the conduct of the Yale team in
playing at you. I think it was rather a compliment than otherwise; but any-
how you are the last man in the world that would squeal about it. I think it
is evident that the Yale men admire you, judging from the comments of
their coach, and of course your game is to be perfectly good-natured and
friendly with them and say that everything was all right. I am very proud
of what you have done and I feel that you have lived right up to the doc-
trines you have preached and that you have upheld the family credit m great
shape.

Now one more last try to get an answer from you about the moose horns.
If you do not write me or Aleck Lambert about them at once, I shall write
him to send them out to Oyster Bay without any scalp for I think the skull
and horns would really be quite enough of a trophy and they would be
easier to dispose of than with the scalp — that is, than if it was a stuffed
head. Your loving father

P.S. I am mighty glad you played football this year; and I am not at all

sorry that you are too light to try for the varsity, so that this will really be
your last year hard at it.

[Handwritten] Hoover 1 has just told me that Mat Hale wrote him a let-
ter of enthusiastic delight at the way you had started your college career.

373Z • TO RAY STANNARD BAKER RoOSevelt M.SS.

Personal Washington, November 20, 1905

My dear Mr. Baker: I have your letter enclosing advance proof of your arti-
cle. I think you are entirely mistaken in your depreciation of what is accom-
plished by fixing a maximum rate. Surely you must see that if the Commission
has the power to make the maximum rate that which the railroad gives to the
most favored shipper, it will speedily become impossible thus to favor any
shipper save in altogether exceptional cases. I have gone all over the question
of allowing the Commission to condemn the rate instead of fixing it, and am
convinced that there is nothing in it. The railroads would eagerly accept
such a proposition, because it would really leave the situation untouched.
They would put in a new rate differing hardly at all from the old one. Fix-
ing a maximum rate will not do all that is desired; but the power merely to
condemn a rate and not to say what rate shall go into effect in its place
would, I think, be a sham. I do not think it would accomplish any of the
things that we wish. I shall go over your letter with Mr. Moody.

Do remember that while it is above all important to keep in mind the fact
that there can be a substantial alleviation of almost every evil, it is of only
secondary importance to keep in mind the further fact that no given measure
and no given set of measures will work a perfect cure for any serious evil;
and the insistence upon having only the perfect cure often results in securing
no betterment whatever. I have had a great deal to do with railroads in the
West, and a great deal to do with eastern legislatures which were dealing
with railroads I have often been impressed by the swinish indifference to
right by certain railroad men in dealing both with the people and with rail-
roads; but I am bound in honor to say that I have seen ten such exhibitions
of indifference to the rights of railroads among legislatures and even among
communities for one that I have seen among the railroad people themselves.
This is doubtless in part due to the fact that there are a great many more
people who are not railroad kings than there are people who are railroad
kings; but the fact remains that if you would examine the bills introduced
in the New York legislature, for instance, about corporations, you would

1 Irwin Hood (Ike) Hoover, at that time a member of the White House ushers’
staff During Taft’s administration Hoover became chief usher, holding this position
until his death in 1933. In Forty-Two Years in the White House (Boston, 1934),
Hoover, an eager but not particularly canny observer, describes life with the Roose-
velt family as “a continual two-step and spirited waltz for seven and one half years.”

see that there are ten so-called strike bills — blackmail bills, ten bills improp-
erly attacking railroads — for one bill to the improper advantage of railroads,
or for one bill against their interests which ought to pass and of which they
secure the defeat. Now, no dealing with the railroad problem is going to
accomplish anything permanent unless as its main feature it contains insist-
ence upon the fact that the first essential is honesty, and that the public con-
science which regards with amused tolerance or approval a blackmailing at-
tempt upon a railroad prepares the way for that railroad itself, by improper
methods, getting something it ought not to have at some other time. More-
over, remember that if the management of the railroads was literally ideal
there would remain an immense volume of complaint from individuals and
localities; some of these complaints being due to simple ignorance, some to
the fact that those who are foredoomed to failure like to cast the blame for
their failure upon others.

So much for legislatures, now for the people at large. I have lived — not
merely sojourned in, but lived — in Western communities where there were
not railroads. Until railroads are built there is nothing the community will
not promise in order to get them in, and I regret to state that after the rail-
road has conic in the whole community is only too apt to pay attention to
the demagogue who tries under one form or another to get them to repudiate
their solemn promises to the railroad. They often promise too much; and
they often fail to perform anything. Any movement conducted not on the
ground of insisting upon justice to the railroads as well as jrom the railroads
— any movement which limits itself simply to an attack upon railroads or
upon the big corporations, is necessarily carried on in a spirit which invites
disaster.

The railroads have been crazy in their hostility to my maximum rate
proposition, and evidently do not share in the least your belief that nothing
will result from it. I think that their alarm is foolishly overdrawn; and I have
not a question that if we get the legislation there will be bitter disappointment
among the people who expect, and have been taught to expect, the impossi-
ble. That it will accomplish some good I am certain. Moreover, it gives us a
definite point of leverage. A single year’s experience by the Commission in
the enforcement of the maximum rate will show whether or not it fails in
its purpose, as you anticipate that it will. If it makes such complete failure I
do not believe there will be difficulty in at least trying the experiment in
some shape or other of the definite rate. Meanwhile, I am absolutely certain
that to adopt your proposal to substitute the power to condemn a rate for
what we propose to do, would give not one particle of relief of any kind. I
would not regard it as a bad power; I would simply regard it as a wholly
ineffective power. I think it probably exists already; but if anyone wants to
embody it in the bill, I have not the slightest objection, provided it is put
in a separate paragraph so that there is no chance of its destroying the effect

84.

of the bill. I do not think it would accomplish any harm. I think it would
merely accomplish nothing. Sincerely yours

373 3 ■ TO CHARLES william fulton Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 20, 1905

My dear Senator Fulton: I enclose you herewith a copy of the report made
to me by Mr Heney. I have seen the originals of the letters from you and
Senator Mitchell quoted therein. I do not at this time desire to discuss the
report itself, which of course I must submit to the Attorney General. But
I have been obliged to reach the painful conclusion that your own letters
as therein quoted tend to show that you recommended for the position of
District Attorney, Brownell, 1 when you had good reason to believe that he
had himself been guilty of fraudulent conduct; that you recommended
Campbell 2 for the same position simply because it was for Brownell’s inter-
est that he should be so recommended, and, as there is reason to believe, be-
cause he had agreed to divide the fees with Brownell if he were so appointed;
and that you finally recommended the reappointment of Hall with the knowl-
edge that if Hall were appointed he would abstain from prosecuting Brow-
nell for criminal misconduct, this being the reason why Brownell advocated
Hall’s claims for reappointment. If you care to make any statement in ref-
erence to the matter, I shall of course be glad to hear it.

As the District Judge of Oregon I shall appoint Judge Wolverton. Very
truly yours

3734 • TO CHARLES EDWIN WOLVERTON Roosevelt MsS.

Confidential Washington, November 21, 1905

My dear Judge Wolverton: I have appointed you District Judge. I now wish
in strict confidence to lay certain matters before you. Under ordinary con-
ditions I should pay heed to the recommendations of the Senators from any
State where I was appointing a judge from that State, I do not mean that I
would fail to exercise my own choice, but that I should of course, as under
the Constitution I am obliged to do, consult and advise with them as to the
best man. In judicial appointments I of course do not allow any Senators as
free a hand as in the appointments to minor ministerial offices, such as inter-
nal revenue collectors, and so forth. In your appointment I have been obliged
to totally disregard the recommendations of Senator Fulton. The reasons I

1 George C Brownell, Oregon lawyer, Republican president of the state Senate.
Brownell was later exonerated from charges of conspiracy in the Oregon land fraud
cases. Judge Wolverton dismissed his case upon Heney’s recommendation.

* James U. Campbell, Oregon City judge; Republican member of the state legislature,
1907, 1909, later circuit court judge, 1909, and Justice of the Supreme Court of
Oregon, 1930-1937.

have been forced thus to act are in part set forth in the enclosed copies of a
letter from Mr. Heney to me and of my letter enclosing the same to Senator
Fulton. When Senator Fulton appears so completely to have tried to mis-
lead me in the matter of recommending a District Attorney, it was, as I have
said, out of the question for me to consult him in the appointment of a
judge. He had previously recommended McBride, and recently Bean. Both
gentlemen may possess the highest qualifications, as I have been assured by
various persons to be the case, but under the peculiar circumstances in Oregon
I was not willing to appoint any judge whom Senator Fulton recommended,
unless independently of Senator Fulton, through such men as Mr. Heney, for
instance, I found out that the man was indeed considered to be the best man
available for the place. Through Mr. Heney and others I have received infor-
mation about you that satisfies me that in point of integrity, force, and judi-
cial capacity you more than anyone else satisfy the high requirements inci-
dent to satisfactorily filling a position on the Federal bench. It is a pleasure
to me to appoint you. Please treat this letter as entirely confidential. Sincerely
yours

3735 • TO JAMES BRANDER MATTHEWS Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 21, 1905

Dear Brtmder: I am hurt and grieved at your evident jealousy of my poetic
reputation. Evidently you have not read my notable review of the epic poems
of Mr. Robinson, or you would appreciate that, even though I have not
written poetry myself, I have yet shown such keen appreciation of the poetry
of other great poets that I felt justified in securing the insertion of that
advertisement. If you saw my review of Mr. Robinson’s poems you may have
noticed that I refrained from calling him “our American Homer.” This was
simply due to the fact that I hoped some discerning friend would see where
the epithet ought to go; less perhaps as an acknowledgment of what I have
actually done, than as an inspiration and prophecy concerning the future. 1
Regretfully and reproachfully yours

[. Handwritten ] When are you coming on here?

3736 • TO NEVADA NORTHROP STRANAHAN Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, November 21, 1905

Dear Stramhan: Higgins has doubtless seen you before this. He took as
strong ground against Platt as against Odell, and said that we could un-
doubtedly elect some man to beat Halpin if it were not supposed to be

1 A Scribner’s advertisement of Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter had been
misprinted to read “Outdoor Pastimes of an American Homer.”

merely a Platt-Quigg victory . 1 I told him that I was for any good man,
whether it was Olcott, or Job Hedges , 2 Herbert Parsons, Jim Sheffield, Judge
Cohen, or Henry Taft. He said he thought it essential that there should be
an independent movement started first for any such man, and then to let the
Platt people back it; or, for the matter of that, the Odell people, as long as we
got a really high-grade man as to whose integrity there could be no question
and who could not be suspected of being the cat’s-paw of anyone. I told him
that this was exactly the position Root and I had taken in our conversation
with you. He said that there was nothing to be done in reference to Odell
himself now; that the thing to do was to beat Odell’s man Halpin, whom he
thought as crooked as Odell. I told him that without discussing the question
of Odell and Halpin being crooked, it was perfectly clear that the bulk of
respectable people were convinced that they were crooked, and were also
convinced that the backing and filling, the dealing and dickering of the
republicans in the last municipal campaign had ruined the prestige of the
party organization in the minds of the voters, and that there would have to
be a change if we wished to keep the respectable republicans of New York
satisfied with their leadership. He also very strongly urged the appointment
as District Attorney of a signally good man, saying that the appointment of
a man like Morris would fall like a wet blanket. To use his own expression,
he said that Odell, Platt and Depew were all so discredited that I remained
the chief asset of the decent republicans and that they would look to me
to appoint men of the highest grade. Although he had a high opinion of
Sheffield he did not think he came up to the standard required for the place
in this particular emergency. I felt the most complete general sympathy with
all his views, and thought that he appeared to great advantage. Of course,
treat this letter as entirely confidential. Mr. Treat will probably come on to
see you. You can tell him of your talk with Higgins; and of course if we can
get some good men like Parsons elected it will simply be an admirable thing.
Olcott is a first-class man, and his election will be entirely satisfactory to me.
It is of course a pity that they should treat him merely as the Platt-Quigg
candidate; and equally of course my interest is neither in Olcott personally
nor in Parsons personally, but in getting some man of high character and
reputation. Root and Cortelyou felt the same way about our interview with

1 A group of leading New York Republicans, including Stranahan, Higgins, Fish and
Barnes, had begun a campaign to eliminate B. B. Odell from the party councils.
Unwilling to restore Platt to exclusive control, they sought to create a new high
command Roosevelt supported them. Their first move was to place Herbert Par-
sons in the contest for the presidency of the Republican County Committee against
the incumbent William Halpin, an Odell man, and the Platt candidate, J. Van V.
Olcott. When it became obvious that Parsons would win, Odell tried to salvage his
lost prestige by switching his support to him, but Parsons’ victory was the beginning
of the end of Odell’s rule in the state of New York. For evidence of Roosevelt’s*
continuing and deep interest in this contest, see Numbers 3740, 3741, 374J> 374^> 374®)
3752.

* Job E. Hedges, New York City lawyer, Republican, in 1900 deputy attorney general
of New York State.

Higgins that I did. I do not wish to dictate the man in any way, or to interfere
save by urging that a decent man be chosen. Sincerely yours

3737 • TO RAY STANNARD BAKER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 22, 1905

My dear Mr. Baker: Of course I will talk with you on the subject, but really
I do not know that much good will come of such a discussion about the
maximum rate. I do not think you could have carefully read my last letter.
It seems to me simply absurd to say that we will “injure the railroads greatly
without curing the discriminatory rates upon which the power of • the
trust is founded.” In this sentence you admit too much. If we would injure
the railroads greatly by establishing the maximum rate, we would then also
injure them greatly by establishing the definite rate Of course Mr. Spencer’s
aim is to beat all rate legislation. 1 I am informed that a number of the more
astute railroad men have been hoping to get some zealous friends of rate
legislation into fighting maximum rates, in the hope of killing the entire
movement. They know well, as every rational man must know, that in most
cases the power to establish a maximum rate will remedy all evils springing
from improper differential rates, because, as I have already said, the Commis-
sion need do nothing but establish the minimum rate given by the railroad
to the favored shipper as the maximum rate to be given to all shippers. One or
two such decisions will put an immediate stop to almost all of the giving of
minimum rates. Frankly, I do not sec that you have made even an arguable
showing for your position.

I quite agree with you that “we have a clear and reasonable demand for
definite and effective legislation against acknowledged abuses.” It is therefore
all the more essential not to turn it into a demand for legislation which may
be unconstitutional until we have tried the legislation which we know is
constitutional, and which we believe will cure nine-tenths of the evils. When
I say “we” I mean to include the Interstate Commerce Commission, the At-
torney General, Mr. Knox, Mr. Taft, and with hardly an exception every
man in public life whose sincerity, experience and training equip him to give
a really valuable opinion on the subject. I believe, and most of the men to
whom I allude believe, that as regards any such subjects as this we can only
make an estimate of probabilities; and we know that it is of course possible
that the maximum rate will work badly, although we think that it will prob-
ably work well. If it works badly, then we will try to secure a definite rate
proposition in some shape which will be constitutional and which will reach
the evil. But hitherto not an argument has been advanced to me which would
justify my advocating the definite instead of the maximum rate as the first

J As president of the Morgan-controlled Southern Railway, Samuel Spencer was

directing the propaganda campaign against Roosevelt’s railroad program This pro-
gram he defined as “commercial lynch law.”

move. Of course I have no idea what Congress will do m the matter; but in
my judgment, utterly different arguments from any hitherto adduced will
have to be brought forth in order to make the men whose opinion and action
are worth anything take the second step before we have taken the first, and
before we have found out whether the first does not render the second
entirely unnecessary.

I shall of course be glad to see you at any time. Sincerely yours

3738 • TO LESLIE MORTIER SHAW Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 23, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: Everything that can be done to avoid a tariff war
with Germany should be done, of course. Now, it has been suggested to me
that certain changes in the administration of our customs laws might be of
use m preventing a break between the countries. Will you let me know as to
the following points-

1. It is now almost entirely the rule that the exporter has to appear per-
sonally before the American Consul in order to get his invoice legalized,
could the rule be made the exception 5

2. Would it be possible to have the invoice legalized, at the choice of the
exporter, or in the district where the goods have been bought, or in the
district in which the exporter lives 5

3. Could under certain circumstances the American Consul in making his
inquiries about the dutiable value be instructed to co-operate with the com-
petent German Chambers of Commerce 5

4. Could the special agents or commissioners sent by the United States
Government to Germany (special treasury experts and agents) in order to
investigate in cases of special importance the market value, be notified to the
German Government and m certain cases co-operate with the competent
German Chambers of Commerce?

5. Could in certain cases in which the accuracy of the value declared by
the importer had been rendered probable by certificates of German official
Chambers of Commerce the importer be allowed, if nevertheless the Ameri-
can customs authorities do not accept his declaration, the possibility of
defendmg himself in a more efficient way than he now can 5 Could the ap-
praisers be instructed to give the motives of their decisions in all cases m
which they decide against the certificates of these Chambers of Commerce 5

6 . Could it be arranged that an “additional” duty be levied only in case
the appraised value exceeds the declared value more than 10 per cent 5

7. Could goods on consignment be treated like goods that have been sold
as regards the re-examination of costs of production 5 1 Sincerely yours

‘These suggested changes m commercial piocedure became the basis for a modus

vvoendi with Germany on the tariff.

3739 • to t. c. friedlander Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 23, 1905

Sir : 1 Your communication of the 6th instant has been received. I trust I need
hardly say to you that everything the American Government can do will be
done to put a stop to the boycott and to secure for our business interests no
less than for our other interests fair treatment in China. Let me take this
opportunity, however, of impressing upon your great and influential body
the absolute need of securing from all good citizens support in the effort of
this Government to do justice as well as to exact justice. Undoubtedly one
of the chief causes of the boycott has been the shortcomings of the United
States Government and people in the matter of the treatment of the Chinese
here. It is our right and our duty in the interest of our own wageworkers to
keep out of this country all Chinese of the coolie class — that is, Chinese
laborers skilled or unskilled. In the last treaty this reciprocal right was ex-
plicitly recognized as inhering in the two nations. The Chinese have a perfect
right to keep out our wageworkers, and we have the same right to keep out
theirs. But there is absolutely no excuse for the failure on our part to treat
in a spirit of largest liberality and courtesy all Chinese businessmen, profes-
sional men, students, and travelers Under the law and under practices which
grew up under the law these Chinese merchants, professional men, students,
and travelers have not been properly treated until within the past year.
Where the law itself is to blame I am powerless and the law should be
changed; but within the past year the objectionable practices that had
grown up under the law have been to a large extent stopped, thanks to the
personal efforts of Secretary Metcalf. The Bureau of Immigration, and the
bureau it succeeded, under successive chiefs and under many administrations
acted with the utmost harshness toward the Chinese, the fault resting ulti-
mately with the public opinion which demanded this harsh treatment, under
an entirely mistaken and improper idea of what was accomplished thereby
and of its need; while there existed no sufficient body of public opinion on
the other side even to call attention in effective way to the abuses. It was
some time before I thoroughly understood where the difficulties lay, and that
in addition to the defects m the law there were defects in the practices
handed down through a long succession of administrations. These practices
have now been remedied. The most effective work that a body like yours can
do in helping put a stop to the boycott is actively to champion these reforms
that have been introduced m the practices of the Bureau of Immigration, and
the reforms necessary in the law. You can be absolutely certain that there
will be no permanent recovery of business conditions so far as they affect
American interests in China unless we can say with truth that all just cause of
complaint by the Chinese against us has been removed. Of course the evil
done by such conduct as that I have recited on our part often continues to

‘T. C. Friedlander, secretary of the San Francisco Meichants’ Exchange.

exist for quite a time after the cause of the evil has been removed; and, more-
over, it may be that the evil passions excited, partly by our own actions,
will in China produce results which cannot be met even by acting justly and
courteously on our part. If such should be the case the American Government
will most assuredly insist with all possible firmness upon the rights of its
citizens and will take whatever means are necessary to secure them. But we
must ourselves do justice, primarily because to do justice is right, and second-
arily because only thus can we put ourselves in a position to demand and
insist upon justice being done to us in return.

You say m your letter that unless strong steps are taken to stop the boy-
cott, American trade will be put back many years, and that the merchants of
San Francisco feel that their interests will be jeopardized. I wish you to feel
that I appreciate this, and that I am keenly alive to the apprehensions you
express; but I wish you also to feel that I have done everything in my power
to stop the boycott, and that the State Department has done everything m
its power. At present anything further must be done by your own repre-
sentatives in the Senate and House, by way of making such changes in the
exclusion law as to prevent the injustice and humiliation to which the Chinese
who do not belong to the coolie class have been subjected in coming to this
country. If you and all the other American merchants who are injured by
the boycott will urge your representatives in Congress to do away with the
cause of the boycott, you will probably succeed. 2 Sincerely yours

3740 • TO NEVADA NORTHROP STRANAHAN ROOSevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, November 23, 1903

Dear Strcmahan: I have seen a number of people from New York and they
all take exactly the view expressed by Governor Higgins. I shuddered when
I read Senator Platt’s testimony today in which he said that he recognized it
as a moral obligation to take care of the interests of the corporations that
contributed to the campaigns. Neither Cortelyou nor Bliss nor anyone else
connected directly or indirectly with raising subscriptions for the national
campaign has ever approached me about any matter connected with the
interests of those who gave the money, always telling me, what from outside
sources I know to be the fact, that they had explained to any man who con-
tributed that the contribution must be given simply from the sense of the
interest of the donor m the prosperity and welfare of the country and in the
principles of the Republican party, and that no special favor of any kind
would be either given or withheld because of giving or failure to contribute.
Only on such terms were the contributions accepted. It is a lamentable thing
to realize the attitude in which the Republican leadership of New York is
put by the testimony brought out before the committee.

“This final paragraph was apparently drafted by Elihu Root. See Jessup, Root, II,

46-47.

I have asked both Mr. Willcox and Mr Henry W. Taft to see you. Faith-
fully y oxers

[Handwritten] I enclose my letter to Senator Platt. Without giving the
name of the man to whom the letter is addressed you are welcome to give
the substance — practically verbatim — to all who call on you to find out
my attitude.

3741 • TO THOMAS COLLIER PLATT RoOSCVelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 23, 1905

My dear Senator Platt: A number of well-known Republicans in New York
have been to me to say that they do not feel that Olcott — not for personal
reasons but for others which I need not go over in this letter — is the proper
man at this time to put forward for Chairman of the Republican county
organization. I have told them all that I was not trying to dictate who should
be chairman, or to interfere in any way save to express my opinion as a good
citizen that whoever was chosen should be a man of the highest character and
reputation and should possess the necessary independence to make it certain
that he would try to conduct the affairs of the Republican organization in
New York City on a high plane of efficiency and integrity. Of course what
is needed is the right type of man. It does not matter so much what particular
man it is. It does not seem to me to be of the slightest consequence whether
the particular man is Olcott or Parsons or Cohen or Frank Brainerd 1 or
Sheffield — or any other man of the type. Of course I should under no
circumstances try to dictate which particular individual of this type should
be chosen. I think that any man whom the really decent Republicans, who
have the welfare of the party at heart, feel should be put forward, ought to
be heartily supported. It is an affair which they should settle themselves. If,
for instance, it is true (what according to the information I have received
appears to be true) that Olcott cannot receive the support of these men, then
as a matter of course it would be utterly foolish to press him and could only
result in damage. As you know, I have believed very strongly that the only
healthy way of treating the Republican party is to treat it m practice as in
theory everyone would say it should be treated; that is, as capable of self-
government. In New York County, for instance, all that we Republicans who
do not live there can with wisdom and propriety do is to give such assistance
as cannot be confounded with dictation to the men within the county who
stand for what is best in the practices and traditions of the paity. Not only
should we be careful not to try to dictate, but not to seem to try to dictate.
It is of course eminently proper both to feel and to show our keen interest.

“Flank Braineid, Harvard graduate, Connecticut businessman, Republican, member

of the Harvard Club of New York.

All this is exactly on the line of our conversation of the other night; but
I write it to you because in view of things that have appeared in the papers
I think that my position should be made clear Sincerely yours

3742 * to thomas dillon o’brien Roosevelt Mss.

Private and confidential Washington, November 24, 1905

My dear Mr. O'Brien: 1 1 thank you for your letter. It was a real pleasure to
see you. In my message I dwell at some little length on the insurance question.
Mr. Root thinks that the national government has power to act in the matter,
but between you and me, Attorney General Moody does not, and neither does
Senator Knox, so that my present impression is that anything that can be
done will have to be done along the lines which, as I understand it, you sug-
gest. If I am correct in this impression and if it appears evident that no action
can be taken by Congress, or only inadequate action, then it seems to me that
some such course of action as you have outlined must take place. Let me
know as soon as you have the situation sufficiently well in hand to need my
co-operation, and then I trust to see you and your colleagues here in Wash-
ington. I very earnestly hope that in the event of the inability of Congress
to act, the States will show a willingness to co-operate as you suggest. In the
event of no other action by Congress being possible, 111 see whether we can’t
get a first-class law for the Dist. of Columbia. Sincerely yours

3743 * TO WALTER CHAUNCEY CAMP Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 24, 1905

My dear Mr. Camp: 1 Ted (who, as you probably know, played on the Har-
vard freshman eleven) wrote me as follows:

All that talk about the Yale boys laying for me was a lie. They played a clean,
straight game and played no favorites. I met a good many of them whom I knew
after the game and we had a friendly drink together. They beat us by simply and
plainly outplaying us.

If you happen to see Mr. McClintock, who is said to have been the coach
of the Yale freshmen, will you show him this*

Ted evidently thoroughly enjoyed himself. His letter runs on, in part, as
follows.

1 Thomas Dillon O’Brien, St Paul lawyer, Minnesota commissioner of insurance and
member of the Democratic National Committee.

1 Walter Chauncey Camp, then athletic director and advisory football coach at Yale,
one of the dominant figures in the development of modern American football, creator
of the concept of the All-American team, later, during World War I, chairman of
the Athletic Department, United States Commission on Training Camp Activities,
and, m that capacity, proponent of the “Daily Dozen.”

Well, I am very glad that I made the team anyway. I feel so large in my black
sweater with the numerals on. Saturday’s game was a hard one, as I knew it was
bound to be. I was not seriously hurt at all. Just shaken up and bruised. I broke my
nose.

In a letter to his mother he says:

The report in the paper about Yale directing their interference against me was
all bosh. Of course I knew all the rotten talk would come out in the papers, but
it could not be helped.

Sutro, formerly of Princeton, tells me that the Yale-Princeton game was
as cleanly played as any game could be. I believe your efforts have borne real
fruit for good. Sincerely yoms

P.S. I have just received your letter of the 2 2d, with enclosed clipping.
Although not qmte accurate, that report has a substantial basis of truth. It
was Cotty Peabody who first asked that I should hold the meeting, and certain
graduates of Harvard, Yale and Princeton wrote suggesting it. The statement
in the papers is inaccurate, but it would have been accurate if it had said
instead of “representatives of Harvard, Yale and Princeton,” “graduates of
Harvard, Yale and Princeton.” A very prominent representative of Columbia
before the meeting was held suggested that I should have a Columbia man
present, and I told him that I did not see how I could do that without having
Pennsylvania and Cornell men, and that as the proposition had orginally been
made to me by graduates of Harvard, Yale and Princeton I did not think it
wise to go beyond those three colleges. My own judgment is that it is not
worth while discussing the matter further. The initiative was through me, and
college politics had no place in it in any shape or way.

3744 • TO LESLIE MORTIER SHAW Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 24, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: As regards that coinage, let us have “Justice” put on
as well as “Liberty.” I think it is a fine idea; for we want to differentiate the
kind of liberty we have under this Government from the kind of liberty
about which the French Revolutionists dreamed dreams of blood. Faithfully
yoms

3745 • TO WILLIAM RUSSELL WILLCOX Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram: (Private) Rush Washington, November 24, 1905

See Platt and Barnes at once. Tell them what you have telephoned me and
say that in my judgment if Halpin is withdrawn by the Odell people in favor
of Parsons the only wise thing to do is to immediately withdraw Olcott in
favor of Parsons, and make it evident that the effort is to stand for a principle
and not for any one candidate. If a man of the character and reputation of

Parsons is named it would seem mere factionalism to oppose him and most
injurious to those who do it.

3746 * TO THOMAS COLLIER PLATT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 25, 1905

My dear Senator Platt. Many thanks for your letter. I do not know that there
is much for me to add to what I have already written. I always want you to
speak frankly, and I know you desire me to speak frankly in return.

I do not look at the matter simply from the standpoint of Mr. Olcott’s
interests, or of the special interests of anyone else. I do not think that we have
any right to consider Mr. Olcott’s interests as paramount to the interests of
the party, and I am certain that to put the County Committee of New York
on a healthy basis it is necessary distinctly to have it understood that the
choice is no more dictated by me than by you or Mr. Odell. As I have said
already, Mr. Olcott is entirely satisfactory to me if he is satisfactory to the
bulk of those Republicans in New York who really have the best interests of
the Republican party at heart, but I think the choice of these men should be
considered first. To fight for Mr. Olcott, as a matter of principle, against the
forces that have either been utterly foolish or corrupt, as has been shown in
the management of the campaign just closed, is one thing. To fight for Mr.
Olcott, and to secure his election by the use of Government patronage, if the
bulk of good Republicans desire anyone else, whether it is Mr. Davis 1 or Mr.
Parsons or Mr. Cohen, is an entirely different thing. The first attitude is
eminently right. The second attitude, in my opinion, is both wrong and fool-
ish. The one thing that I have endeavored to make clear is that I was not
trying to fight for any one man and not entering into the contest in a spirit
of factionalism, but simply endeavoring so far as I could to aid those Re-
publicans whose advocacy of Republicanism means most for the future of
the party in securing a thoroughly good, able and independent head of the
county organization.

You say, “I think the candidacy of Mr. Davis is a good thing, and I
wouldn’t mind seeing any other good man aspire to the place, but my course
under the circumstances must be to further the candidacy of Olcott up to
the point where his retirement appears to be a party necessity, if that point
shall be reached and he shall willingly consent to retire.” I entirely agree with
the above excepting as to Mr. Olcott’s willingness to retire If Mr. Olcott is
not willing to retire when it is a party necessity for him to do so, then he is
not entitled to be consulted at all, but my opinion of Mr. Olcott is so high
that I am certain it is out of the question that he would assume any such
attitude. It seems to me that the “party necessity” point has been reached, if
it be true that the Odell people have made a virtue of necessity and retired
in favor of Parsons. Sincerely yours

1 Gherardi Davis.

P.S. At any rate I hope you will insist upon what you said m your pub-
lished statement, which you enclosed to me

The election of Mr. Parsons would be just as fatal to the survival of Odell’s
authority over the committee as would Mr. Olcott’s, and between them personally
I should have no choice, except for two facts — first, that Mr. Olcott consented
to make the fight when we were looking for a leader, and second, that he has
much the larger following.

You are quite right when you say, “I know, moreover, that Mr. Olcott
stands high in the esteem of President Roosevelt.” My concern is lest if you
persevere in supporting Mr. Olcott and are beaten, you will seem to throw
the victory into the hands of the very men who are to blame for the condi-
tions against which both Mr. Parsons and Mr. Olcott stand; and furthermore,
lest if you win against a man as clean and good as Mr. Parsons, who seems to
be backed by a very large proportion of the men representing those forces
which are far more potent at the polls than in the organization itself, you
should give the impression that it is merely what is called a machine triumph,
and this I need hardly say is not an impression which tends to secure strength
for the party at the polls.

3747 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November 25, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary I have carefully read through the letter of the
Korean Emperor handed to you by Mr. Hulbert:, an American long resident
in Korea, to whose hands this letter had been entrusted. I understand from
you that the Korean representatives here, so far as you know, are unac-
quainted with the existence of such letter and that Mr. Hulbert understands
that it is the wish of the Emperor that the existence of the letter should be
kept secret and nothing said to anyone about it, and particularly not to the
Japanese. Of course, these facts render it impossible for us to treat the letter
as an official communication, for theie is no way in which we could officially
act upon it without violating what Mr. Hulbert says is the Emperor’s wish.
Moreover, since the letter was written we have been officially notified that
the Korean Government has made the very arrangement with Japan which
in the letter the Emperor says he does not desire to make. All things con-
sidered I do not see that any practical action on the letter is open to us. 1 Sin-
cerely yours

J In the letter brought to Washington by Homei Bezaleel Hulbert, editor of the
Korean Review, the Korean emperor requested Roosevelt to intervene to protect
the political independence of Korea. Hulbert arrived, however, after the protocol
officially establishing the Japanese protectorate had been signed by the emperor on
November 17th See Dennett, Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War, pp. 305-305

Roosevelt in Colorado* “A great many books . give me the ease and
relaxation that I can get in no other way 55

374 s " T0 Herbert parsons Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, November 27, 1905

My dear Parsons: Olcott came on to see me 'today, and Root and I have had
a long talk with him. You have probably seen my letter to Senator Platt, or
at least my first letter, and if you will call on Stranahan and show him this
letter he will show you my letter to Senator Platt, if you have not already
seen it, as well as my letters to him, and Mr. Willcox will show you my
telegram to him. My second letter to Senator Platt I shall show you at any
time you are on here. I mention this to you merely that you may if you wish
see what my position has been throughout. Olcott, through no fault of his
own, has been put in a very difficult position. He came forward to make the
fight under the impression, not that I had said (as I actually did say) that he
or you or Cohen or any other man of the type if brought forward by the
right people would be all right, but that I felt that he was the only available
man. It is of course as untrue to say that if elected he would be under the
domination of Senator Platt and Mr. Quigg because he is supported by them
as to say that you would be under the domination of Governor Odell and Mr.
Halpin because you have been supported by them. But both statements will
be believed by many honest people if something is not done to counteract
them. You have doubtless seen that the papers now speak of your candidacy
and of what seems to be your probable victory as “Odell’s triumph over
Platt.” Very good people from up the State have seen me to express their
bitter chagrin at what they regarded as your surrender to Mr. Odell, and as
to its very bad effect upon the move for decency in the New York organiza-
tion. These good people from up the country, take the exact view about
your candidacy under its present auspices that equally good people in the
city take of the candidacy of Mr. Olcott under the auspices of Senator Platt
and Mr. Quigg. Under the right conditions I would feel very strongly that
either your candidacy or that of Olcott would represent a most effective
blow against bossism and corrupt machine rule and would be entitled to
the support of all decent Republicans in New York. But to have you running
as the Odell candidate, your election only rendered possible by the support
of Odell and Halpin, with Olcott running as the Platt candidate and receiving
his mam strength from the Platt and Quigg forces, would mean that the
contest was one of mere factionalism, in which it would be very difficult to
detect a principle, and the outcome in either case would be unfortunate.
I think you would probably win, although I do not think it certain. If you
did win there are a few people, including very good people who are our
friends, who would regard it as your victory; but the great bulk of the
people would regard it as Odell’s, and would consider you simply as an
instrument m his hands, just as the great bulk of the people would consider
Mr. Olcott an instrument in Mr. Platt’s hands. I am sure that neither feeling

would be true and that either you or Olcott would act independently and
fairly as Chairman of the County Committee; but I do not think that either
of you would ever be able to get over the effects of a victory won in such
a manner, and I would not regard a victory so won by either of you as
possessing much significance from the standpoint of the regeneration of the
party in New York.

At the same time I feel that Mr. Odell has been much more adroit than
Mr. Platt in this matter. Mr. Platt should in my judgment have taken the
stand which I understood he was going to take, namely, that while his own
preferences were for Olcott, he would support you or Olcott or whoever the
bulk of the good Republicans, the independent men, felt should be put for-
ward. He did not do this, and the way in which the candidacy of Mr. Olcott
was announced put him distinctly before the people as Mr. Platt and Mr.
Quigg’s candidate; whereas Odell waited until you had announced your
candidacy as an independent candidate and until it was well known that
certain people entirely disconnected with either machine would rally around
you. Under these circumstances Root and I feel that Olcott should with-
draw in your favor, provided it can be clearly shown that you are not merely
the candidate of Mr. Odell; that your triumph is not an Odell triumph; that
your candidacy is not merely one move in the game for retaining the hold
of the present State machine on the Republican party — a game which, if
successful, means as you and many other friends have said to me again and
again, the certain ruin of the party. Root and I have advised Olcott accord-
ingly to withdraw, if you will make some statement to the effect that you,
if elected chairman of the Republican County Committee, will regard your-
self as the representative neither of Mr. Odell nor of Mr. Platt; as owing
fealty to no machine and no boss; as recognizing no factional discriminations
of any kind within the Republican party, but as standing m an absolutely
independent position, resolved to conduct so far as it in your power lies the
affairs of the party upon the highest plane of cleanliness and uprightness, of
entire independence of any kind of dictation, and with an eye single to mak-
ing the party so far as your power extends subserve the best interests of the
people, because you are convinced that only in this way can you be of service
to the party itself. I think you ought also to add explicitly that no support
that may be given you will create any obligation, expressed or implied, on
your part, as to the support you give any man for leadership in the Republican
party in the State, because you are beholden to no man, and in casting what-
ever influence you may possess one way or the other when the question of
leadership in the State comes up you will be guided solely by your views as
to the best interests of the party. I am sure that if Olcott withdraws he will
be actuated only by a sincere belief that he is doing what the best interests of
the Republican party demand. Like you, he only entered into this contest
under the firm conviction that it was his duty to try to help the party out of

the slough of despond into which it had fallen. Like you, he felt he was
undertaking a difficult and probably thankless task simply from a sense of
fealty to duty. I believe that if you take the steps outlined above, which
Root and I feel you ought to take, Mr. Olcott will withdraw in your favor,
and under those circumstances the campaign is changed from a faction fight
between the apparent representatives of two bosses (for, however unjustly,
this is the way in which the bulk of the party regard the present situation)
into the unanimous selection of a clean, straight, independent man, supported
because he is known to be beholden to no bosses, under obligation to no
machine, and able to act with a view solely to what his convictions dictate
as to the best interests of the Republican party. Faithfully yours

[ Handwritten ] If you like, show this to Harry Taft, Jim Sheffield and
Edmund Wetmore. 1

3749 • to Gifford pinchot Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 27, 1905

My dear Mr. Pinchot: The great importance I attach to the grazing problem
throughout the West has led me to interrupt your work on the Committee on
Department Methods, so that you might attend the meeting at Glenwood
Springs. In dealing with this problem I should like to have you remember
that recent investigations have demonstrated the destructive character of the
free range system in the past. A very large proportion of the vacant public
lands are valuable at present only for grazing. The grazing value of much of
these lands is not now more than half what it once was. It therefore becomes
the duty of the Government to see to it that in the future these lands are
used in a way that will preserve their grazing value and give them the greatest
usefulness to the people.

In the forest reserves the question becomes doubly important, because
the future welfare of almost the entire West depends upon the preservation
of the water supply, and this m turn upon the wise use of the forests and the
range.

It must not be forgotten that the forest reserves belong to all the people,
but the grazing privilege can be used only by a few. It is therefore only just
and right that those who enjoy the special advantages of a protected range
should contribute toward the expense of handling the reserves.

Important progress has been made in the forest reserves in the practical
solution of the grazing problems, and I heartily approve the general policy
outlined in the new rules and regulations. Sincerely yours

1 Edmund Wetmore, New York City lawyer, Republican, past president of the

American Bar Association

375° ' TO r ay stannard baker Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November 28, 1905

My dear Mr. Baker: Indeed it is a pleasure to hear from you or to see you. I
shall see you at any time that you come on. I now answer your note of the
25th.

In the first place, my dear Mr. Baker, let me take up your last paragraph,
in which you say that last year the whole country was with me, whereas now
the railway men will be against me, and “also a very large number of people
whose distresses will not be relieved by any maximum rate law.” Last winter I
did not attempt to define the legislation with precision, but beginning with
my Colorado speech last May, I, and Taft in his speeches and Moody in his
opinions, have tried to define our position absolutely, so that this is no new
position of ours. It is the position which we took as soon as we were requested
to prepare formatively measures which we hoped would at least to a consider-
able extent remedy the evils, and which would stand the test of the courts. As
you know, the one thing I do not want to do is to enact a sham — that is, to
enact a law which, when it goes before the courts, will prove to be valueless.
In the next place, while I will try to relieve people whose position is a dis-
tressing one whenever it is possible, I can no more afford to back a bill be-
cause I shall have a universal popular sentiment behind me than I can afford to
back it because the great railroads are behind it, unless in each case I am
convinced the bill is right and proper, will work justice, and will stand the
test of the courts. Surely you must agree with me in this. Remember that I
abhor a demagogue as much as I abhor a corruptionist.

You say “that the power to fix the maximum rate would be a step in the
right direction. * * * It seems to me that it will not touch the real seat of
greatest distress. It may probably relieve cases of discrimination between indi-
viduals, but it seems to me that it will not touch those much more difficult
problems of discrimination between localities and between commodities.”
I am inclined to believe that it will accomplish more than you think as re-
gards commodities; but as regards discrimination between localities, I freely
admit that it will not do nearly as much. But whereas I am perfectly clear
as to our duty in the matter of discrimination between individuals, and
within certain limits as regards commodities (comparing a commodity like
dressed beef with a commodity like live cattle, for instance), I am not at all
clear that a satisfactory result can be achieved as regards localities. But I
shall try to formulate some plan which, in a separate section of the bill, shall
allow the imposition of a minimum rate to prevent improper differentials
between commodities, and between localities on the same railroad where the
conditions are alike — where one has no advantage in water competition, for
instance. I want the section in such form that if the courts kill it, it shall not
kill the bill. This is for two reasons In the first place, it is much more difficult
to say what ought to be done in any given case as regards localities, and in

100

the second place a tribunal is under much greater temptation to yield to
pressure, which will bring about improper decisions. As to the first point, it is
sufficient to point out that all kinds of complicated elements enter into the
decision. The question as to which community is accessible by water is vital,
because then water competition introduces an entirely new element in the
problem On the other hand, each community is sure to claim that it is
unjustly treated, and there will be pulling and hauling by rival communities
to influence the Commission, and each side will be able to make a more or
less specious case. No such case can be made out if the discrimination is
against an individual, but it is the easiest thing in the world to make a showing
which will convince each of two rival communities that there is discrimina-
tion against it, whatever is done. Actual experience in Germany has shown
that there is normally apt to be very gross injustice done as between localities
when the Government fixes the rate. I know of no proof that such injustice
normally follows where the Government fixes the rate as between individuals.

In short, I do not want to do anything blindly. I do not want to do any-
thing that the courts will probably declare to be worthless. I am sure about
the maximum rate. It may be that we can provide that the minimum rate can
be applied under safeguards in qertain cases. I am sure that we ought to stop
discrimination between individuals. I think we can do it as regards commodi-
ties. I am not at all sure how far we can with safety go as between localities.
Whatever I do, I want to do something real and I do not want to make any
mistake. I cannot afford to yield to a popular demand on the one hand any
more than I can afford to yield to the frantic expostulations of the railway
men and the big men of property on the other, unless in one case as in the
other I am convinced that we are on the right track.

In social and economic, as in political, reforms, the violent revolutionary
extremist is the worst friend of liberty, just as the arrogant and intense reac-
tionary is the worst friend of order. It was Lincoln, not Wendell Phillips
and the fanatical abolitionists, who was the effective champion of union and
freedom; it was Washington, and not the leaders of the “liberty mobs” who
did the real work in securing us national independence and then the national
unity and order without which that independence would have been a curse
and not a blessing. Sincerely yours

3751 •to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 30, 1905

The Secretary of State: It does not seem to me to be wise to grant this re-
quest, even though it is true that the minister in question would probably be
a somewhat better man than even a good colored man. 1 We find the utmost

1 The request was for the appointment of John R King, a white, Protestant minister
to succeed John T. Williams, a Negro, as consul at Freetown, Sierra Leone Pursuant
to this letter of Roosevelt, the vacancy was given to another Negro, William J.
Yerby. King was made vice-consul.

IOI

difficulty in getting places where colored men can be put without causing
such friction as to offset any possible benefit by the appointment, but surely
in appointments to colored communities such as Haiti, Liberia and Sierra
Leone there can be no such objection, and in these communities we should
appoint colored men. Moreover, as regards colored men even more than as
regards white men, all possible attention should be paid to getting the highest
type of man. It is said that from Illinois a very unworthy type of colored
politician has recently been recommended for an office. Under no circum-
stances appoint any colored men unless colored men of the best type, of the
stamp of Booker Washington, speak well of them. It is a serious damage to
the colored race to appoint men who are not good citizens, clean, upright and
capable. Through Booker Washington or some similar man, try to get a good
colored man for Freetown, Sierra Leone.

3752 • TO JACOB VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Washington, November 30, 1905

In judgment of Root and myself, Parsons’ statement 1 absolutely meets the
requirement of the case as you and he and I agreed should be made at our
conference Monday. I feel you ought not to delay an hour in coming out for
him.

3753 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, December 4, 1905

My dear Moody: It is emphatically against the interest of this country that
there should be any duty on wood pulp. Such a duty amounts to a premium
upon the destruction of the forests. I wish it could be abolished. Most
certainly we should welcome any judicial decision which tends against a
construction of the law so disastrous as would be the imposition of a high
duty on wood pulp or material for wood pulp. In some case before you
I understand the court has so decided. If this be the fact the Government
should certainly not take any appeal from the decision. 1 Sincerely yours

3754 • TO PAUL ESTOURNELLES DE CONSTANT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 6, 1905

My dear Baron: The Sully has come, and of course I am simply delighted
with it. I wonder why it is, my dear Baron, that the people of no other
1 See No. 3748.

1 There had been no decision altering the protected status of wood pulp under the
Dingley Tariff In spite of the President’s interest in conservation, two bills to place
wood pulp on the free list died in committee during the first session of the 39th
Congress.

102

nationality have quite the admirable taste that the people of yours possess 11
Now, it is possible that there are national legislators of my own or of some
foreign country who would have felt as you feel; but it is not possible that
any save representatives of your country could divine just the kind of gift
that I would myself value, and which I would like to try to deceive myself
into believing was most appropriate.

I wonder if you would be willing to do me a further favor, and that is
that you and the other donors should write and severally sign on a sheet of
note paper a few lines stating why the gift is sent me, substantially as you
have stated it in your letter, which I enclose herewith, begging that you
will return it. I would like to put such a signed statement, m the handwriting
of the donors, inside of the cover of the book, which will from now on be,
I think, the most valued book in my library. 1 Sincerely yours

3755 * 1° Charles p. mcclelland Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, December 7, 1905

Sir: Through the courtesy of Mr. Hughes, the counsel for the Legislative
Committee now investigating insurance matters in New York City, I have
been furnished with a transcript of the testimony given by you before that
committee. It is my unpleasant duty to say that reading this testimony con-
veys to me the impression that you were an agent in the effort seemingly
made by certain of these great insurance companies improperly to control
and direct legislation, and that your conduct was not such as to justify public
confidence in you; that your conduct, in short, was not such as would have
warranted me in appointing you to office had I known it at the time, and
therefore not such as to warrant my retaining you in office now that the
facts have been brought to light. Before passing judgment, however, I desire
to hear from you as to whether there is anything in addition to what you
have already testified to which you desire to lay before me. 1 Sincerely yours

1 In recognition of his work at the Portsmouth Peace Conference, Roosevelt received
a first edition of Sully’s memoirs from members of the French Parliamentary
Group of International Arbitration and Conciliation For the inscription which
Roosevelt requested see Autobiography , Nat Ed. XX, 530-531.

1 McClelland had admitted that he represented the Mutual Life Insurance Company
and other insurance companies before the state insurance and justice departments. He

had received fees for such services from Mutual and Equitable. He had, furthermore,
accepted favors and presents from Andrew C. Fields, superintendent of the supply
department of Mutual His reply to this inquiry, however, persuaded Roosevelt
to permit him to remain m office. See No 3765.

103

3 75 6 ' TO david starr Jordan Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 7, 1905

My dear President Jordan: Indeed I shall be very glad to have those fish
named after me. 1 Who would not be’

It was such a pleasure to see you here the other day. Sincerely yours

3757 • TO CLARENCE DON CLARK Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 8, 1905

My dear Senator Clark : 1 I have sent to the Senate the name of Benjamin
Franklin Daniels, now serving under a recess appointment as Marshal of
Arizona. This name I presume will go before your committee and I would
like through you to put before the committee certain facts about Mr. Daniels.
He was bom and brought up in the West when it was a very wild West
indeed, and his early life was passed in conditions which have now as
completely vanished from this country as the age of the Vikings has vanished
from Europe; and Daniels and the men like him, who were the only ones
who could grapple effectively with those conditions, bore no small resem-
blance in both their virtues and their faults to these same Vikings. By the time
he was eighteen Daniels was a frontier scout and ranger, and had been in fight
after fight with the Indians as well as with white desperadoes, and for ten
years afterwards he led a turbulent life on the remote frontier of civilization.
He repeatedly rendered staunch service to the courts of justice, serving with
distinction in the dangerous position of one carrying out the behests of the
court, even while living this wild, reckless life; but he finally got in with a
set of men of bad character and took part in the robbery under arms of a
band of horses or mules from a Government agency. The older criminals
escaped; the younger man was captured, tried and convicted and served a
term in the penitentiary Since coming out he has served in many important
positions with great credit; and both before and after the commission of the
crime he displayed signal heroism in supporting the cause of law and order
at the peril of his life. He was a deputy marshal under Bat Masterson in
Dodge City when Dodge City was the toughest town on this continent, and
when only the gamest land of man could do good work in such a position.
Mr. Masterson, who is now himself a deputy marshal in New York City,
testifies in the warmest terms to Daniels’ efficiency, courage and honesty.
He has many other testimonials of the highest kind. The then Governor of
Arizona, Alexander O. Brodie, writes me as follows:

1 When a type of brook trout was dying out, Roosevelt placed representatives of the
type in government hatcheries for breeding purposes. He thus saved one “of the
gamest, showiest, and best flavored species of fish from extinction.” The species was
then called the Roosevelt golden trout.

1 Clarence Don Clark, Republican senator from Wyoming, 1895-1917.

104

.. j » m ~ „ Washington, D. C., March 8, 1905.

My dear Mr. President:

_ Governor of Arizona, it gave me unqualified pleasure to appoint Mr.

r u formeri y a mem her of the 1st U. S. Vol. Cavalry as Superintendent

of the Territorial Prison at Yuma on a vacancy occurring by the resignation of
Superintendent Griffith, and I am addressing this letter to you in order that you
ma y ke acquainted with the valuable service he rendered the Territory and me
while holding this position. I found him honest, honorable, sober, reliable and
fearless m this place of trust and responsibility, humane in his care of those in his
charge, impartial in his administration and at all times absolutely in command of
the situation and in charge. As a matter of fact, I had such trust in his wisdom in
the management of affairs that I did not deem it necessary to make frequent trips
to the institution, knowing that I could absolutely rely upon his reports. I consider
him a man of the true American type, patriotic, home loving, honest and honor-
able and at all times to be relied upon. He has shown himself always to be a man
of dignity, whether in success or adversity.

Daniels’ services to his country in the Spamsh-American War as a member
of the 1 st U. S. Vol. Cavalry you are acquainted with as well as I, but I have felt
that I should like you to know of the service he has rendered the Territory of
Arizona and me as Governor.

With expressions of high regard,

Yours sincerely,

Alexander O. Brodie.

I also received the following two letters:

Dear Sir:

San Amtonio, Texas, Dec. 18, 1901.

I am in receipt of information that Mr. Ben Daniels is an applicant for the
position of U. S. Marshal for the territory of Arizona. It affords me pleasure to
be able to recommend Mr. Daniels to any position of that character. I have
known Mr. Daniels for quite a number of years. He was in the employ of Wells
Fargo & Company, and a greater part of the time under my direct employment.
I never have found him wanting m any respect, and if my recommendation can
m any way advance his cause, I would certainly be very much pleased if you
would give the matter the consideration that is due to the man.

I remain,

Very respectfully,

F. J. Dodge,

Special Officer, Wells Fargo & Company.

Washington, D. C., December 14, 1901.

To Whom It May Concern:

This is to certify that I have known Ben Daniels since 1878. Most of the time
I have known him he has been an officer. First he was Assistant Marshal of Dodge
City, Kansas, and afterwards Marshal of Guthrie. He is a man of good ability and
good nerve. When a paper is put in his hands to be served, anyone who knows
him knows that he will serve it. I consider him entirely fearless. He is not afraid
of anybody. At the same time he is a gentleman and I would be pleased to recom-
mend him for any office that the President of the United States should deem him
worthy to fill. Very respectfully,

H. P. Myton.

105

Four years ago I nominated him for this position. He was confirmed and
I commissioned him, but then found out that he had been in the penitentiary
and canceled the appointment because he had not frankly told me the facts.
But I think that he has now atoned for his fault. Since I thus canceled lus
appointment, he has served under the Territorial Government as Warden of
the Penitentiary and has done well. The Governor of the Territory and the
Chief Justice wire me as follows about him:

Phoenix, Arizona, December 8, 1905.

The President.

Ben Daniels’ administration as superintendent of the territorial prison was an
excellent one, both as disclosed by the record and by comment of those who
know. I have had no opportunity to know of his administration of the office of
United States Marshal during his short incumbency, but the fact that I hear no
complaints signifies that it is good.

Joseph H. Kibbey,
Governor.

Phoenix, Arizona, December 8, 1905.

The President.

Daniels’ record as warden of penitentiary was very good, as marshal he has
been satisfactory to the court in the performance of his duties. As you know
he is fearless and energetic. He has a great desire to acquit himself well m his
responsible position and I believe he will do so.

Edward Kent,
Chief Justice.

My own acquaintance with him dates from 1898, when he joined my
regiment. I was in close touch with him all through the Santiago campaign
because I speedily found that he was one of the men in whom I could place
entire trust and whom I could use in the most hazardous and responsible
service. A more gallant, more loyal and more trustworthy soldier never wore
the United States uniform. Not only was he absolutely indifferent to personal
danger of any kind, but he showed excellent judgment, was a strong steady-
ing influence in the regiment in every way, and was as useful in camp as 111
battle. He was as devoted to his comrades m sickness as he was indifferent to
his own life in battle. He nursed his comrades when down with the fever
with assiduous care, at the very time that he himself was so sick with the
fever that he came right to death’s door. In battle I repeatedly entrusted him
with the performance of hazardous duty. For example, I entrusted him with
the leadership of the sharpshooters who were to lie all day in the jungle
between the Spanish lines and ours so as to keep down their fire on our
trenches He was always at the front in any emergency, and his coolness was
absolutely unshaken either by day or by night; and when the fighting was
over, and the fatigue had been so great as to exhaust all but the very
strongest, I would employ him, although himself a sick man, in conducting
on foot the carts containing the fever-struck men whom we had to send to

106

the fever hospitals in the rear, being certain that he would care in every
way for those in his charge. I would now trust him absolutely in anything
connected with my own interests, and I am not willing that the United States
should lose the value of his proved courage and efficiency. Still less am I
willing to admit that even a grave offense in a man’s youth cannot be wiped
out by a record such as I have given above. 2 Sincerely yours

3758 • TO BELLAMY STORER Roosevelt M.SS.

Washington, December 1 1, 1905

My dear Bellamy: I am very sorry to have to write as I do in the enclosed
letter to Mrs. Storer, which I shall ask you to read and then hand to her. I
have been most reluctant to write as I herein write, I am deeply attached to
both of you; but it is evident that I cannot longer delay using the plainest
kind of plain language; for it is evident that such plain language is necessary
to prevent the American Government from being put in a false and wholly
improper position. Sincerely yours

3759 • TO MARIA LONGWORTH STORER Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 11, 1905

My dear Mrs. Storer: Secretary Taft has just shown me your letter of
November 26th, this letter evidently being intended for me as much as for
him. On inquiry of Mrs. Roosevelt I find that she had received from you a
letter to me, which is probably the one to which you refer in your letter to
Mr. Taft; but she tells me she treated this letter as she sometimes has treated
other letters that you have sent her to dehver to me, when she has known that
the receipt of them would merely make me indignant, and puzzle me as to
what action I ought to take about Bellamy’s remaining in the service; that is,
she did not give it to me. Your direct or implied complaints of and reflections
upon my own personal conduct give me no concern; but I am very gravely
concerned at the mischievous effect your letters must have in misrepresenting
the position of the United States Government, and by the far-reaching
governmental scandal your indiscretion may at any time cause. I have now
seen your letter to me sent through Mrs. Roosevelt. In it you actually propose
that I (as in your letter to Taft you propose that he) should authorize you
to go to Rome to take part in what I must call an ecclesiastical intrigue, and
to drag the United States Government into it. Such a proposal is simply
astounding. You say that Cardinal Merry del Val has stated that I have “re-
quested that two Archbishops,” one Farley, 1 be made Cardinals. All you had
* Daniels was appointed.

1 John Murphy Farley, at that time Archbishop of New York, was made a cardinal
in 1911.

107

to say was that such a statement was a deliberate untruth, because you knew
that I had refused to make such a request even for Ireland. You say in your
letter to me, “You can trust me really.” How can you say this, when you
write to Taft a letter which if by accident published would absolutely mis-
represent, in the most mischievous manner, both me and die American
Government? You have no more right to meddle in these matters than Mrs.
Reid would have to meddle in the Ritualist controversy, or Mrs. Tower to
try to take charge of the relations of Germany to the American Lutherans.

Your letter to Mr. Taft and the letters to Cardinal Merry del Val and
Archbishop Keane (of the answers to which you enclose copies), and your
letter to the Princess Alexandrine (of the answer to which you also enclose
a copy), are all letters which it is utterly improper for you to have written,
in your position as the wife of an American Ambassadoi, and show a con-
tinued course of conduct on your part which is intolerable if your husband
is to remain in the diplomatic service. In the first place, I wish it to be
explicitly understood that though since I have been President I have been
approached at different times by prelates of your Church and even by laymen
in your Church with requests that I ask of the Vatican, or express a prefer-
ence for, the appointment of some person as Cardinal, I have always positively
and unequivocally refused directly or indirectly thus to ask for the appoint-
ment of any man as Cardinal; and it would have been a gross impropriety for
me to have made any such request, while it is an outrage to represent me as
having, in any shape, made it To Archbishop Keane, to Mgr. O’Connell and
to other men who have approached me on behalf of Archbishop Ireland, I
have said that I had a very high regard for the Archbishop, and that I should
be delighted to see him made a Cardinal, but that I could no more try to
exercise pressure to have him made a Cardinal than pressure to get the
Archbishop of Canterbury to establish an Archbishopric m America. Other
persons have spoken to me, saying that Ireland could not be made a Cardinal,
unless another Cardinal was made in the eastern states, and that they hoped
that two American Cardinals (usually mentioning Ireland and Farley) would
be appointed, one in the East and one in the West. I always answered that I
had a great regard for both men and would be delighted to see them made
Cardinals, just as there were Episcopal clergymen and Methodist clergymen
whom I would be delighted to see made Bishops; but that I would no more
interfere in one case than I would in the other. It is a matter of settled and
traditional policy of this Government not to interfere, as you desire me to
interfere, and as you have yourself been trying to interfere, under any
possible circumstances. Your letters not only convey a totally wrong im-
pression of my attitude; but they are such as you have no business whatever
to write, in view of the position of your husband m the diplomatic service
The letter of Cardinal Merry del Val to you of November 23rd is a rebuke to
you, expressing plainly his belief that you have been unwarrantably officious
in matters with which you have properly no concern It should of itself be

108

enough to show to you how exceedingly unwise and improper your action in
writing to him was. I am indignant that the wife of an Ambassador in the
United States service should have written such a letter, should have given
the impression undoubtedly conveyed by that letter, and should have in-
curred such a rebuke. You do not seem to realize that it is out of the
question for me knowingly to permit the wife of one of our diplomats to
engage in ecclesiastical intrigues to influence the Vatican. For the last couple
of years I have continually been hearing of your having written one man or
the other about such matters. I find that you are alluded to by foreign
members of the diplomatic body in Washington, Paris and Berlin as the
“American Ambassadress to Rome.” I was unofficially informed on behalf
both of Berlin and of Paris that because of these actions of yours it would
not be agreeable to them to have Bellamy come as Ambassador to either
place. Information of this kind has been repeatedly brought to Secretary
Root. I have consulted him and Secretary Bonaparte, who is a member of
your Church, as to this last letter of yours. Root’s feeling about the case is
stronger than I care to put into words, Bonaparte’s feeling is exactly my own.
Suffice it to say that in any event it will probably be impossible to send
Bellamy as Special Ambassador to Spain, having in view what you have done.
But I must go a little further than this. You and Bellamy must understand that
so long as Bellamy continues in the diplomatic service of the United States
you must refrain from writing or speaking in the way you have been doing
on any of these matters, affecting what are simply the personal politics of
church policy, to anyone, and above all to anyone connected with the Vati-
can. If you cannot make up your mind absolutely to alter your conduct in
this regard, while your husband is in the diplomatic service, to refrain
absolutely from taking any further part in any matter of ecclesiastical
politics at the Vatican, and to refuse to write or speak to anyone (whether
laymen or ecclesiastics, at home or abroad) as you have been writing and
speaking in this Cardinal’s hat matter, then Bellamy cannot with propriety
continue to remain Ambassador of the United States. I must ask you to give
me this positive promise in writing, if Bellamy is to continue in the service;
and if you even unintentionally violate it I shall have to ask for Bellamy’s
resignation, for I can no longer afford to have the chance of scandal being
brought on the entire American diplomatic service, and on the American
Government itself, by such indiscreet and ill-advised action as yours has been.
Yours very truly

P.S. Since writing the above I have looked up my correspondence with
you and Bellamy and I find that I have expressed myself not merely once but
again and again about this matter in terms which it was simply impossible for
you to misunderstand. For instance, on December 19, 1903, I wrote to
Bellamy saying that Mgr. O’Connell asked me to write something on behalf
of Archbishop Ireland, and continuing:

109

I told him of course that I could not interfere in such a matter, as it was none
of my business who was made Cardinal; that personally I had a very strong friend-
ship and admiration for the Archbishop, and that individually it would please
me greatly to see him made Cardinal, just as it pleased me when Dr. Satterlee
was made Bishop of Washington; but that I could no more interfere in one case
than in the other — in short, that my feeling for the Archbishop was due to my
respect for him as a useful and honorable man — just such a feeling I had had
for Phillips Brooks and for many other clergymen of various denominations;
but that I could not as President in any way try to help any clergyman of any
denomination to high rank in that denomination.

On December 27, 1903, I again wrote to Bellamy enclosing an article
which showed that he had been talking about my interest in Archbishop
Ireland, and stating that such conduct on his part had been mischievous, and
I continued as follows:

I have the heartiest admiration for Archbishop Ireland. I should be delighted
to see him made Cardinal, just as I was delighted to see Lawrence made the Epis-
copal Bishop of Massachusetts, just as I have been delighted at various Methodist
friends of mine who have been made Bishop. But as President, it is none of my
business to interfere for or against the advancement of any man in any^ church;
and as it is impossible to differentiate what I say m my individual capacity from
what I say as President — at least in the popular mind, and apparently also in the
Roman mind — I must request you not to quote me in any way or shape hereafter.

On December 30th, by which time I had found out that Bellamy had
written what I considered an entirely improper letter to Senator Hanna about
r the dismissal of Hurst, I again wrote him and this time included the following
paragraphs:

I know, my dear Bellamy, that you have not intended to do anything disloyal
or improper, but surely on thinking over the matter you will see that there would
be but one possible construction to be put upon such a letter from you. Think
of the effect if your letter were made public!

Let me repeat to you that, m reference to matters affecting the Catholic church,
events have conclusively shown that while you are Ambassador you must keep
absolutely clear of any deed or word m Rome or elsewhere which would seem to
differentiate your position from that of other Ambassadors. The mere fact of the
report in the newspapers about your calling at the Vatican has had a very
unfortunate effect. I dare say you did not call; you may merely have seen some
Cardinal privately; but the unpleasant talk over the affair emphasizes the need
of extreme circumspection while you are m your present position. While I am
President and you are Ambassador neither of us in his public relations is to act
as Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, and we have to be careful, not merely
to do what is right, but so to carry ourselves as to show that we are doing what
is right. I shall ask you not to quote me to any person m any shape or way m
connection with any affair of the Catholic church, and yourself not to take action
of any kind which will give ground for the belief that you as an American Am-
bassador are striving to interfere in the affairs of the church.

Surely these three letters of mine should have been enough warning to
both Bellamy and you. Apparently you have quoted isolated sentences from

1 1 o

my letters to convince some people that I am doing just exactly what I again
and again in writing stated explicitly that I would not and could not do. This
being so, I must ask you to return to me all of my letters in which I have
spoken on any of these ecclesiastical subjects. If I were in a private position I
should not have the least objection to your keeping them. But as I have
apparently been totally unable, even by the language I have quoted above as
used m my letters to Bellamy two years ago, to make you understand my
position as President m these matters, I feel that my letters should be returned
to me. Again sincerely yours

3760 * TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Private Washington, December 14, 1905

My dear Dr. Abbott . I enclose you three letters from President Wheeler and
some clippings he has sent me. From these letters you will see that the
opposition is frankly based upon the ground that the Republican organization
(what in State politics would be called the Republican machine) cannot con-
trol the Interstate Commerce Commission. This is exactly what I want. I
no more regard that commission as properly controllable by a party organiza-
tion than I would regard the Supreme Court as thus properly to be controlled.
Of course, what is meant when they say that they cannot thus control the
commission is that they cannot thus control it m the sinister interest of certain
great railroads. If you will look at the names of certain of the Senators who
have turned up openly against Mr. Lane, 1 you will see that they are the men
who openly or covertly are fighting the entire scheme for railway rate
legislation.

1 earnestly hope that you will point out the wrong that will be done the
United States Government to defeat the Santo Domingo treaty on mere
partisan grounds. 2 In this railway rate business, including, for instance, my
nomination of Lane, I have shown that on such a question I pay no heed
whatever to mere narrow partisanship, and yet, incredible though it may
seem, at this very time the effort is being made, with some prospect of
success, to solidify the southern Democratic Senators (who are practically
all that there are left of the Democracy in the Senate) into a solid opposition
to the Santo Domingo treaty — a treaty which they would normally favor,
and which they are against simply because I happen to be a Republican
President. It is partisanship in its most offensive form, for it is the kind of
partisanship which sacrifices the good of the country on a measure which is
opposed by people who really do not object to it at all but who think they
can score a point against the administration We cannot confirm the treaty
under the two-thirds rule save by Democratic votes. There is a good deal

Roosevelt’s nomination of Franklin K. Lane for the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion was confirmed by the Senate

2 The second Santo Domingo treaty, then before the Senate

I I I

of talk of northern legislators being corrupt, but there are no Senators ever
sent by any northern State who do as much harm to the country as a
whole as such men as Tillman, Carmack, Bailey, Culberson, Bacon and
Morgan, who are always not merely willing but anxious to sacrifice the great-
est interest of the nation to the meanest and pettiest kind of personal partisan
politics. The trouble is, they dragoon their associates, who are afraid of
being taunted with subserviency to the Republicans; and where, as m the
case of the Santo Domingo treaty, the issues involved do not immediately
concern any great body of people for the moment, they are able to do really
great damage.

About Panama, do take an interest also. The very same creatures who
have attacked me for appointing a Democrat in Franklin Lane, attack me for
appointing a mugwump, Joe Bishop, as Secretary of the Canal Commission,
and the mugwumps join in because throughout the time of the anti-imperiahst
outbreak he has remained steadfastly with us. I have appointed him because
I wanted a man in a responsible position in whose honesty I trusted as I trust
m yours. He has been an editor, and has been my supporter only m the sense,
for instance, that one of your sons has been my supporter. The sure way to
secure inefficiency and corruption in the Panama work is to prevent my
paying decent salaries to the men who do that work, 8 and I shall fight as
fiercely as I know how against any attempt along this line. Sincerely yours

3761 * TO JACOB HENRY SCHIFF Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 14, 1905

My dear Mr. Schvff: I sent your previous letter to Secretary Root. I did not
answer it because, my dear Mr. SchifT, I must frankly say that it would be
difficult to answer it without hurting your feelings. You made a request for
action on my part which if I took it would make the United States Govern-
ment ridiculous, and so far from helping the condition of the Jews would
have hurt them in Russia and would have tended to hurt them here. It is
simply nonsense to suppose that when Russia is in the condition that she now
is any kind of action on my part would accomplish anything. When the
governmental authorities in Russia are wholly unable to protect themselves —
when there is revolt in every quarter of the empire among every class of the
people — and the bonds of social order everywhere are relaxed, it is idle to
suppose that anything can be done by diplomatic representation. The idea of
a European coalition in which we should join is of course wholly chimerical.

* Bishop was already secretary and “historian” of the Panama Canal Commission at a
salary of $10,000 a year, a sum many senators considered excessive To increase
Bishop’s authority and at the same time preserve his salary, Roosevelt had nominated
him to the vacancy on the commission which had not been filled since Wallace’s
resignation In this post he would have received $7,500, plus, presumably, $2,500 for
services as secretary. Although this nomination to the commission was not confirmed,
Bishop continued to be secretary and historian.

1 1 2

What would such a coalition do. enforce liberty or order — restore the
autocracy or install a republic^ Therefore it is evident we could do nothing,
and where we can do nothing I have a horror of saying anything. We never
have taken and while I am President we never will take — any action
which we cannot make good. Why, my dear Mr. Schiff, the case was much
simpler as regards the Armenians a few years ago. There the Turkish
Government was responsible and was able to enforce whatever was desired
The outrages on the Armenians were exactly the same as those perpetrated
upon the Jews of Russia both in character and m extent. But we did not go
to war with Turkey. Inasmuch as it was certain that our people would not
go into such a war, at least with the determination for the lavish outlay of
blood and money necessary to make it effective, it would have been worse
than foolish to have threatened it, and not the slightest good would have been
or was gained by any agitation which it was known would not be backed up
by arms. I shall take no action until I know that any action I take will
do good instead of harm, and I shall announce no position which I may have
to abandon at the cost of putting the United States Government in a humili-
ating and ridiculous attitude. I thoroughly believe that in national affairs we
should act in accordance with the plains adage when I was in the ranch
business: “Never to draw unless you mean to shoot.” 1 Sincerely yours
P.S I sympathize thoroughly with your feelings, wrought up as they
are and ought to be by the dreadful outrages committed on the Jews in
Russia; anything I can do I will do; but I will not threaten aimlessly and
thereby do harm.

3762 ' TO LLEWELLYN POWERS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, December 15, 1905

My dear Mr. Powers : 1 I am going to ask you not to object to my sending
in the name of William W. Sewall for Collector of Customs for the District
of Aroostook, Maine. I think that you will agree with me that Mr. Sewall is
entirely competent. Under ordinary circumstances I should follow your
preference in the matter, but this is a peculiar case, for Sewall is an old friend
of mine whom I have known for nearly thirty years, with whom I have
lived and hunted both in the fall and in the winter in Maine, and with whom
I have lived and worked year m and year out on a ranch on the Little Mis-
souri. You know the peculiar ties that bind one to a man m whose company

1 Roosevelt had previously, on November 16, written Schiff a letter to be read at the
250th anniversary meeting of the settlement of the Jews in the United States. In that
letter he sympathized with “the Jewish people in other lands” in their “lamentable
and terrible suffering.”

For a resume of Jewish conditions in Russia during the Revolution, see Foreign
Relations , 1905, p. 831, 1906, pp. 1296-1314.

Llewellyn Powers, lumber merchant, Republican representative from Maine, 1877-
1879, 1901-1908, Governor of Maine, 1897-1901

one has known toil and hardship, hunger and cold, and with whom one has
fronted risks and overcome difficulties. I can personally guarantee Bill
SewalPs courage, honesty and efficiency, and I hope you will agree to his
appointment. 2 Sincerely yours

3763 * TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, December 15, 1905

Sir: I have received your letter of December 1 3 th. The facts therein set forth
prove in conclusive fashion that you were absolutely right in the position you
have all along taken both as regards the proceedings against the company
implicated itself and as regards the further proceeding proposed against the
officers of the company, including Mr. Paul Morton, recently a member of
my Cabinet. In my letter of June 12th last, m reply to yours of June 5th in
which you advised the course which has actually been taken and which has
been so signally justified by the event, I wrote you that in my judgment, as
in your own, you would have been wholly without justification in proceed-
ing individually against the officers of the company as there was not a particle
of evidence against them. I added that

One of the officers, Mr. Morton, is a member of my Cabinet. This fact is not
to be allowed to shield him, nor on the other hand is it to be allowed to cause him
to be singled out, or the officers with whom he is associated to be singled out,
for attack . 1

I directed you to proceed against the company, and of course to proceed
against any individual officer if any testimony was produced showing that
he had been personally guilty either by act or connivance, stating that I
agreed with the doubt you had expressed as to whether there was good
ground for proceeding even against the companies, but that I also agreed with
you that we should try to obtain the judgment of the court on the question
as to whether the injunction was sufficient, and whether, therefore, there
was any ground of action whatever. The result shows that you were en-
tirely right in your doubt whether the injunction was sufficient to cover the
case. I am much pleased with the remarks quoted by you in which Judge
Philips 2 speaks of the attacks made on Mr, Paul Morton. Your original
advice to me was to direct that the evidence before the special counsel who
had advised action against these and other officials individually, should be sub-
mitted to Judge Philips, who had issued the injunction, to see whether action
could be taken against any of them personally. I refused to take this action.

2 Bill Sewall was appointed

1 Responding to congressional resolutions providing for investigation of Morton’s
conduct, Roosevelt had returned to this familiar theme. After the letter was pub-
lished, Judson Harmon accused Roosevelt of protecting Morton from deserved
prosecution.

2 John F. Philips, United States Judge for the Western District of Missouri.

Judge Philips (who had before him all the evidence which was before the
special counsel) m his decision exactly covers the point which would have
been raised if I had followed your advice. He says:

This instance has attracted considerable public attention because of the sensa-
tional association of the names of * * * Paul Morton * * * then Vice-President
of the defendant company, with the transaction. The record in the case, however,
* * * (including the) evidence taken before the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion, fails to furnish any foundation for imputing to those gentlemen any personal
responsibility for the alleged violation of the Interstate Commerce Law.

The decision of the court, therefore, is not only that you were absolutely
right in the advice you gave me as to the corporation, but furthermore, and
explicitly, that there was no possible ground for action against Mr. Morton.
No action m addition to that which you proposed could properly have been
taken. The course actually taken was absolutely proper, and the decision of
the court, and the opinion of the Judge above quoted, show that to have
taken the course proposed by the special counsel would have been unjust
Sincerely yours

3764 * TO FREDERICK COURTENEY SELOUS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, December 18, 1905

My dear Mr , Selous: I have been delighted with all the pieces you sent me and
have read and reread them all. Do go on with your lion article. I earnestly
wish you would now write a book describing the natural history of big game.
You arc the only man alive, so far as I know, who could do it. Take Swayne’s
book, 1 for instance, which you sent me. It is an excellent book in its way, but
really it is only a kind of a guide book. The sole contribution to natural
history which it contains is that about the wolves and the big sheep. But you
have the most extraordinary power of seeing things with minute accuracy
of detail, and then the equally necessary power to describe vividly and
accurately what you have seen. I read Swayne’s book and I have not the
slightest idea how the sheep or the ibex or the deer look; but after reading
your articles I can see the lions, not snarling but growling, with their lips
covering their teeth, looking from side to side as one of them seeks to find
what had hurt it, or throwing up its tail stiff in the air as it comes galloping
forward in the charge. I can see the actual struggle as the lion kills a big ox
or cow buffalo. I can see the buffalo bulls trotting forward, stupid and fierce-
looking but not dangerous unless molested, while they gaze from under their
brow armor of horn at the first white man they have ever seen. I can see
wild hounds, with their ears pricked forward, leaping up above the grass to
see what had shot at the buffalo they were chasing.

I was immensely interested in your description of these same wild
hounds And what a lesson you incidentally give as to the wisdom of re-
x Harald George Carlos Swayne, Through the Highlands of Siberia (London, 1904)

115

framing from dogmatizing about things that observers see differently. That
experience of yours about running into the pack of wild hounds, which
nevertheless, as you point out, often run down antelopes that no horse can
run down, is most extraordinary. I am equally struck by what you say as to
the men who have run down cheetahs on horseback. Judging from what Sir
Samuel Baker 3 saw, for instance, cheetahs must be able to go at least two feet
to a hoise’s one for half a mile or so. I wonder if it is not possible that the
men who succeeded in running them down were able to get a clear chase of
two or three miles so as to wind them. If different observers had recorded the
two sets of facts you give as to the speed of the wild hounds under different
conditions, a great many people would have jumped to the conclusion that
one of the two observers, whose stories seemed mutually contradictory,
must have been telling what was not so.

Let me thank you again for the real pleasure you have given me by send-
ing me these articles. Now do go on and write that book. Buxton and I and
a great many other men can write ordinary books of trips in which we kill
a few sheep or goat or bear or elk or deer; but nobody can write the natural
history of big game as you can. Faithfully yours

3765 • TO CHARLES EVANS HUGHES Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 19, 1905

My dear Mr. Hughes: I am very much obliged to you and I think you have
been a trump to take so much trouble in answering my letters.

Now will you glance at the enclosed letter from McClelland to me? The
whole matter makes me very uncomfortable. Enough has been developed to
make me feel that if I had to make a new appointment I would not appoint
McClelland; and yet I confess I do not very well see how I can remove
McClelland. The one act of proved impropriety was his living rent free in
Fields’ house, and while it is improbable, it is yet quite possible, that this
was the act of a rather dull man who lacked the nice moral sensitiveness to
see that even though Fields was an old family friend, it was entirely im-
proper to stay with him under the circumstances. That is, the conduct was
improper, but I am by no means clear that the impropriety was so great as to
warrant me in striking him the crippling blow which would be inflicted by
removal under these circumstances; for removal now of course means that
his reputation would be blasted forever.

Of course this is not your affair and I have no business to bother you
with it, but I thought I would let you know just how I felt. I do not suppose
you will be able to, or would care to, give me any advice. Of course, if you

* Sir Samuel White Baker, explorer and big-game hunter in Africa and India, author
of Ismailta (London, 1874). Baker was appointed Governor-General of the
Equatorial Nile Basin, 1869-1873.

1 id

do care to I shall be glad, and I shall then take the matter up with Mr. Root
and Attorney General Moody and probably Mr. Taft.

Please return McClelland’s letter to me.

With renewed thanks, Sincerely yours

3 7 66 • TO MELVILLE WESTON FULLER Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, December 19, 1905

Sir: I herewith enclose a copy of a letter sent to me by Mr. Charles L. Freer
offering to bequeath his art collections to the Smithsonian Institution or the
United States Government, together with $500,000 in money to construct a
suitable building; or if it is deemed preferable, to make a present conveyance
of the title to such Institution or the Government and a bequest of the sum
of $500,000 for the building. 1 The offer is made upon certain terms and con-
ditions which in my judgment are proper and reasonable.

It is impossible to speak m too high terms of the munificence shown by
Mr Freer in this offer, and it is one which the Government of the United
States should at once close with as a matter of course. Mr. Freer’s collection
is literally priceless; it includes hundreds of the most remarkable pictures by
the best known old masters of China and Japan. It also includes hundreds of
pictures, studies and etchings by certain notable American artists; those by
Whistler alone being such as would make the whole collection of unique
value — although the pictures by the Chinese and Japanese artists are of even
greater worth and consequence There are other art pieces which I need not
mention. Any competent critic can testify to the extraordinary value of the
collection. I should suggest that either Dr. Sturgis Bigelow or Mr. John
LaFarge be sent to Detroit to examine the collection, if there is any question
about it; although I assume that every member of the Board of Regents
is familiar with its worth. The conditions which Mr. Freer imposes are m
effect that nothing shall be added to or taken from the collection after his
death, and that the collection shall be exhibited by itself m the building to
be constructed for it without charge to the public; furthermore, that he shall
have the right to make such additions to the collection as he may deem

1 The prospective donor of this valuable collection, Charles Lang Freer, had been,
before his retirement in 1900, a railroad executive in Detroit. Associated with Senator
Janies McMillan m the Michigan Car Company, he was also instrumental in obtain-
ing the consolidation of thirteen companies that is now known as the American Car
and Foundry Company

Freer’s interest m art, begun with his acquisition of a few Whistler etchings m
the eighties, continued throughout his life In later years, with the encouragement of
Whistler himself, he devoted more and more attention to the art of the East Unhke
many other enthusiastic collectors of his time, he did much of his own investigation
and purchasing The result of this personal enterprise was a unique and priceless
collection of Oriental art, now m the possession of this country through Freer’s
generosity and the wisdom of the trustees of the Smithsonian

advisable, but not to take anything away from it after April next, the
collections remaining in the possession of Mr. Freer until his death and then
in the possession of his executors until the completion of the building. These
conditions are of course eminently proper.

All that is asked of the Government or the Regents of the Smithsonian
now is that they shall accept this magnificently generous offer. Nothing
whatever else is demanded at present. When Mr. Freer’s death occurs land
will of course have to be allotted for the erection of the building — a building
which will itself be a gift of great beauty to the Government — and when
the building is completed and the collection installed therein, and not before,
Congress will have to take some steps to provide the comparatively small
sum necessary to take care of what will be a national asset of great value.

I need hardly say that there are any number of communities and of in-
stitutions which would be only too glad themselves to promise to erect such
a building as that which Mr. Freer is going to erect, for the sake of getting
this collection. The offer is one of the most generous that ever has been
made to this Government, and the gift is literally beyond price. All that is
now asked is that we shall agree to accept on behalf of the Nation the great
benefit thus to be bestowed upon the Nation.

I hope that the Regents of the Smithsonian will feel warranted to close
with the offer; for they are the national guardians of such a collection. If in
their wisdom they do not see their way to accept the gift I shall then be
obliged to take some other method of endeavoring to prevent the loss to
the United States Government, and therefore to the people of the United
States, of one of the most valuable collections which any private individual
has ever given to any people. Sincerely yours

3767 * TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, December 19, 1905

My dear Dr. Abbott: Will you return to me all of the enclosed letters after
you have gone through them 5 I am particularly interested in the one by
Finlayson, because he sets forth what I am sure are true facts about the oppo-
sition that has developed to the confirmation of Lane.

Sometime I want again to speak to you about Lodge and the criticisms of
the Outlook upon him . 1 1 try to look at Lodge disinterestedly, and try not
to let my personal friendship mislead me. In this very railway rate fight he
is against me. But he is a man of the most sensitive honor, and while I think
he is entirely mistaken in being against us and hope we will get him around,

‘“Senator Lodge is a boss of agreeable personality — a gentleman of culture . . .
But he has undertaken to tell the people of Massachusetts what they ought to wish
instead of asking them what they do wish, and every vote for Mr. Whitney was less
a vote for reciprocity than a vote against the spirit and methods of a political
dictator.” — Outlook, 81.647 (November 18, 1903).

Xl8

I am certain that he is absolutely conscientious in his attitude. In Massachu-
setts Lodge is a leader of just such a type as, for instance, I have been trying
to make Governor Higgins, for m New York State we certainly need good
leaders, but he is in no sense or way a boss, as we understand the word “boss.”
Take the contest that has just closed m Massachusetts, I think we never have
seen a more impudent and hypocritical movement than that typified by
Whitney in his race for Lieutenant Governor, and it is simply astoundmg that
decent men should have stood by him. If you care to write to George Fred
Williams, himself a Democrat, (whom I regard as a very dangerous man on
some points but who is an honest man), you will find that Mr. Whitney is a
proved lobbyist of the very type that has done most to debauch and corrupt
State legislatures. He is the kind of man against whom every man who is
really stirred by the disclosures in the insurance investigation, for instance,
should war with all the ability that there is in him. Whereas Lodge sold all
his railway bonds, at a real loss, as soon as he made up his mind he could not
support my rate regulation movement. Faithfully yours

[Handwritten] P.S I send you, for your personal . . . knowledge, a
copy of a letter to Parsons, ....

3768 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 19, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: I think that statement from the Argentine Blue Book
of 1905, of which you have sent me a translation, is monstrous The first
quotation is in substance accurate. The second quotation is entirely inac-
curate. It is untrue that I ever said anything as to the lacial superiority of
the Argentine people, or that I instituted any such comparison between
Argentina and Brazil, Chile, and the other countries named. The statement
is an absolute falsehood. Ought we not to take steps to have it officially con-
tradicted? 1 Sincerely yours

3769 * TO GEORGE WASHINGTON DUNN Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, December 19, 1905

My dear Colonel Dunn : Of course, as Governor Higgins has declared for
Wadsworth who is an A-i man, I take it for granted that all the elements
who desire to see straight-out, clean, decent politics in the New York Legisla-

1 The Argentine Pink Book had published an account of a conversation on March
15, 1905, between Roosevelt and Garcia Merou, former Argentine Minister to the
United States. The President reportedly had stated that Brazil, Chile, Venezuela,
Colombia, and Central America “offered only a slight field for the expansion” of their
people and could not be compared “with the greatness and wealth of the Argentine
territory” Roosevelt officially denied this account m a letter to the Argentine
foreign office

ture will get behind him. 1 This is your position, is it not? Sincerely yours
[Handwritten] Until I saw the papers this morning I had no idea Wads-
worth’s name was even under consideration, and I do not think that Wads-
worth himself had.

3770 • TO HERBERT PARSONS Roosevelt Mss.

Personal and private Washington, December 20, 1905

My dear Parsons: Until I read it in the papers I had no idea that the Governor
would pick Wadsworth as the man he could support. I had seen Wadsworth
the day before and found him m hearty sympathy with our views, and he
had gone to the Governor to say that he would himself support any good
man such as Moreland, Hooker or Wainwnght. 1 Of course the thing to do
now is to turn in with all possible zeal and try to elect Wadsworth. We can
perfectly well afford to be beaten in the effort to elect a fearless, clean,
honorable man, who is the candidate of no boss and no ring. But we cannot
afford to submit to or acquiesce in the choice or attempted choice of anyone
whom Mr. Odell puts forward. I do not know anything about Merritt per-
sonally, but from one end of the State to the other his election would be
taken to mean that Odell would control legislation; and we have Odell’s own
testimony to the effect that legislation which he controls is controlled in his
own personal and financial interest, as well as in the interest of the wealthy
individuals or corporations with whom he is on good terms. I would under
no circumstances ask to dictate the election of any particular man; but I am
a citizen of New York State and interested, as every good citizen should be,
in having clean politics at Albany, and therefore in seeing some clean man,
whoever he may be, given the highest position in the legislative body — a
position which wields great influence in the party. If such a position is held
by a man elected to it by corrupt influences, the result cannot but be disas-
trous. I am very slow to take action when the cry raised is merely that such
and such a man is a “boss,” or that there ought to be a revolt against the
“machine”; but in this instance it is not a case of a mere revolt against a boss
or a machine, it is a revolt against the cynical practice of corruption in public
life, and the prostitution of official place for the advancement of personal

l To succeed Nixon, who had died, as speaker of the New York Assembly, Odell
supported Edwm A Merritt, Jr. Higgins, after refusing to back Merritt, decided
to follow the suggestion of Aldridge of Rochester and support James W Wadsworth,
Jr. With the assistance of Herbert Parsons and the approval of Roosevelt, Higgins
managed Wadsworth’s selection by the Republican caucus. The defeat of Merritt
indicated that Odell had lost all of his power in New York. Odell and Higgins,
previously friendly, never again spoke to each other. For a detailed account of the
speakership and its relation to the shifting balance of political power in New York,
see Smith, New York, vol. IV, ch. viii, especially pp. 120-123.

‘Sherman Moreland, Chemung County, Samuel P. Hooker, Genesee County, and
J. Mayhew Wainwnght, Westchester County, all veteran Republican assemblymen
and experienced committee chairmen.

120

gain. Against such corruption and such prostitution of office, all honest men
should set their faces like flint. Sincerely yours

3771 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 20, 1905

To the Secretary of the Navy: I have been greatly interested and impressed
by reading this article from Russian sources giving an account of the Russian
view of the battle of the Sea of Japan. I should hke it called to the attention
of Admiral Converse, of Admiral Evans, of Lieutenant Commander Sims and
of anyone else who has made a special study of gunnery, because of the
insistence of the Russians that the Japanese superiority in secondary battery
fire was one of the main causes of their defeat; and on account of the damage
the Russians say that the Japanese torpedo boats did in broad daylight when
the fight had only gone on for an hour or two. This article would certainly
seem to offer facts which should make us hesitate and be sure of our ground
before abandoning the secondary batteries in favor of guns all of the largest
size. Perhaps this plan ought to be adopted, but we ought first to have the
full facts before us. 1 It appears furthermore from this article that in the battle
of the Yellow Sea of August 10, 1904, the Russians had landed half of their
secondary batteries, and that in the battle of the Sea of Japan not only were
many of the ships on the verge of mutiny but some actually mutinied during
the fight.

3772 • TO THEODORE PERRY SHONTS Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, December 21, 1905

My dear Mr. Shonts: That is interesting, and just what I would expect. But
Mr. Sullivan 1 is mistaken about Mr. Cromwell having had my confidence'
Sincerely yours

3773 • to james Wilson Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 21, 1905

My dear Mr. Secretary: I have received your letter of December 20th. I
cordially approve of the policy you are carrying on. Your effort is to keep

‘In spite of Roosevelt’s uncertainty, the all-big-gun design was adopted for the
South Carolina and Michigan In the spring of 1906 the Bureau of Construction and
Repair, following almost exactly the armament proposals Roosevelt had unsuccess-
fully advocated for the New Hampshire in 1904 (see Numbers 3274 an< ^ 3 2 7 ^)>
provided the two ships with a 12-inch main battery and a 3-inch secondary battery.
On the Delaware and later battleships the caliber of the secondary battery was in-
creased to five inches. The reported effectiveness of the Japanese secondary batteries
and torpedo boats did, however, revive the arguments for the small mixed-caliber
battleship, see No 4071.

1 George Hammond Sullivan, Cromwell’s law partner

I 2 I

the grazing lands in the forest reserves for the use of the stockmen, and espe-
cially the small stockmen, who actually live in the neighborhood of the re-
serves. To prevent the waste and destruction of the reserves and to keep them
so that they can be permanently used by the stockmen no less than by the
public, you have to spend a certain amount of money. Part of this money is
to be obtained by charging a small fee for each head of stock pastured on the
reserve. Less than a third of the actual value of the grazing is at present
charged, and it is of course perfectly obvious that the man who pastures his
stock should pay something for the preservation of that pasture. He gets all
the benefit of the pasture and he pays for its use but a small fraction of the
value that it is to him; and this money is in reality returned to him because it
is used in keeping the forest reserve permanently available for use. You this
year make a special reduction by which the small ranchmen pay but half
rates. This is in accordance with the steady policy of your department as
regards the western lands, which is to favor in every way the actual settler,
the actual homemaker, the man who himself tills the soil or himself rears and
cares for his small herd of cattle. In granting grazing permits you give pref-
erence first to the small near-by owners; after that, to all regular occupants
of the reserve range; and finally to the owners of transient stock. This is
exactly as it should be. The small near-by owners are the homesteaders, the
men who are making homes for themselves by the labor of their hands, the
men who have entered to possess the land and to bring up their children
therein. The other regular occupants of the reserve range — that is, the larger
ranch owners — are only entitled to come after the smaller men. If after
these have been admitted there still remains an ample pasturage, then the
owners of transient stock, the men who drive great tramp herds or tramp
flocks hither and thither, should be admitted. These men have no permanent
abode, do but very little to build up the land, and are not to be favored at the
expense of the regular occupants, large or small. This system prevents the
grass from being eaten out by the great herds or flocks of nonresidents, for
only enough cattle and sheep are admitted upon the reserves to fatten upon
the pasturage without damaging it. In other words, under the policy you
have adopted the forest reserves are to be used as among the most potent
influences in favor of the actual homemaker, of the man with a few dozen
or few score head of cattle, which he has gathered by his own industry and
is himself caring for. This is the land of man upon whom the foundations of
our citizenship rest, and it is eminently proper to favor him in every way 1
Sincerely yours

1 The question of grazing privileges became an issue when Senator Patterson, repre-
senting the interests of the large owners, opposed Secretary Wilson’s policy of
charging fees for grazing. See Roosevelt to Patterson, December 21, 190J, Roosevelt
Mss , and also Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, pp 270-272

I 22

3774 ' TO LUCIUS burrie swift Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, December 2 6, 1905

My dear Swift: Your letter gives me concern, for I am positively committed
to Rothschild. 1 Beveridge suggested his name to me and gave me plenty of
excellent recommendations, and I told him all right, I should appoint him.

One reason, which I do not like to have spoken of much, is that I like
when I can to appoint a Jew for the very reason that it is often so difficult to
find just the right Jew to appoint — just as I like to appoint a Catholic. Am
I at liberty to show your letter to Beveridge? As I say, I am afraid my word
has been given in the matter, and unless some real delinquency can be shown
it will be very difficult for me to go back on it.

Wishing you many happy new years, believe me, Sincerely yours

3775 • TO CHARLES WILLIAM LARNED Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 1, 1906

My dear Colonel Larned: 1 1 have read your article 2 with great interest. With
most of the fundamentals I agree. I would like to see the army concentrated
into a few great posts. I would like to see the private soldier used as the material
out of which to fill all vacancies in the rank of officer that are left unfilled
after the West Point Cadets have been appointed. I would like to see his pay
increased. I am not at all sure as yet that I should like to forbid his re-enlist-
ment. At any rate I should wish to have the noncoms steadily re-enlisted and
a premium put upon their long service. I do not think it well that we should
create a poor class of noncoms by giving the impression that every private
was a failure unless he became an officer.

But my dear Colonel, if you dealt with Congress you would appreciate
the difficulty of getting an increase in the expenses of the army. However, I
am going to take up your article with the General Staff, for I think there is
a great deal in it. Sincerely yours

377 6 • to Herbert parsons Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram: Confidential Washington, January 2, 1906

Telegram received. Have sent following telegram to Hamilton Fish, which
you can show confidentially, but which should not be published:

1 Swift objected to the proposed appointment of Leopold G. Rothschild as surveyor
of customs at Indianapolis, on the ground that he was not a “representative business
man” (Swift to Roosevelt, December 23, 1905, Swift Mss ). Congressman Overstreet
also opposed the appointment. Nevertheless, the President followed Beveridge’s
advice

1 Charles William Larned, professor of technical and military graphics and applied
geometry, United States Military Academy, West Point, 1876-1911.

3 Charles William Larned, “The Regeneration of the Enlisted Soldier,” International
Quarterly, 12:189-207 (January 1906).

123

“Am greatly concerned at your telegram to Wainwright. Hope you
will take no further step without consulting me. I would consider defeat of
Wadsworth under present circumstances as a well-nigh irreparable blow to
the cause of honest government at Albany.” 1

3777 ’ T0 frank wayland higgins Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, January 3, 1906

My dear Governor: I congratulate you heartily. What a curious mood Odell
seems to be in! The great fight of course was to prevent a secret ballot. When
I was a candidate for Speaker in 1884 I was beaten by means of the secret
ballot, the test vote coming on that issue.

By the way, in view of Odell’s fulminations as to showing up you and my-
self, you may be interested to know that I have from him a letter urging m
frantic terms the appointment of Hyde as Ambassador to France, saying that
it would be the greatest personal favor I could do him. This letter offers
rather interesting reading in connection with Hyde’s testimony before the
insurance investigating committee. That Odell perjured himself m his own
testimony I have no doubt. Sincerely yours

3778 • TO JAMES WOLCOTT WADSWORTH, JUNIOR Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Washington, January 3, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker: Just a word of hearty congratulations. I believe that
you possess to a marked degree the three qualities essential to a public servant
if he is to be of use — courage, honesty and common sense. You will need
all three. I cannot give you specific advice because I am not acquainted with
the situation closely enough. I know you will encounter great difficulties.
I have entire faith that you will overcome them.

I wonder if you will mmd an older man, who has a great belief in you,
giving you two bits of general advice which will probably sound platitudi-
nous? At any rate I shall venture to do so. Remember that in the long run,
for a man of your instincts and of your ambitions, which are always strictly
honorable, the only way in which he can help himself is by trying to make
the party useful to the public and the State, and in order to do this he has got
to try to act in accordance with high ideals, and yet by the aid of practical
methods. In the second place, my own experience has been that both my
pleasure and my usefulness in any office depended absolutely upon my refusal

1 Wainwright and Wadsworth were contestants for the Republican nomination for
the speakership in Albany. Fish had thrown his support to Wainwright m the fol-
lowing telegram “Your election would restore party harmony ana would be a
happy solution. On your platform you deserve to have the united support of New
York County” (New York Tribune, January 3, 1906) Parsons, strengthened by
Roosevelt, held New York County in line. Wadsworth was elected Speaker oh
January 1 See No. 3769, note 1.

124

to let myself get to thinking about my own future political advancement; for
I have always found that such thought merely tended to hamper me and
impair my usefulness, without giving me the miserable offset of a continu-
ance in place. I very early, while myself in the Legislature, became convinced
that if I wished to have a good time in public life and to keep my self-respect
by doing good service, it paid me to think only of the work that was actually
up, to do it as well as I knew how, and to let the future absolutely take care
of itself. I believe that you have a future before you, and this future will
come not through scheming on your part but by giving first-class service,
through your party, to the State. The Odell type of politician can advance
himself by scheming and by practices which to you and me are impossible.
We could not win by such methods, because we should practice them too
clumsily, and if we could win, we would find the prize not worth having on
such terms, while to fail would mean hideous disaster. Go ahead just as you
have begun — fearlessly, honorably, and trying to show both your good
judgment and good temper, neither flinching nor showing petty vindictive-
ness. I think you will win out, and even if you do not you will have nothing
to regret, and you will have already achieved something substantial for the
credit of your name. Sincerely yours

P.S It seems to me that both Rogers and Moreland 1 have behaved very
squarely with you and that so far as you can it would be well to show your
appreciation to them. It was very hard upon Rogers, and I think he showed
a really first-class spirit in coming out and doing yeoman’s work for you. He
got into line in good shape when the end came; and of course Moreland
acted squarely from the beginning. I am also anxious to see if you think you
can get down here during the course of this week. I want to talk over the
State Chairmanship and other matters with you. If you like you can show
this letter or any part of it to the Governor, or tell him that I have asked you
to come down and the purpose for which I have asked it. My dear fellow,
you cannot imagine what a comfort it is to have you Speaker.

3779 • to eugene hale Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 3, 1906

My dear Senator Hale: Mr. Bishop will be required to perform the following
duties-

1 . All the regular duties of Commissioner for which each Commissioner
is paid $7,500. These are attendance upon the meetings of the Commission
here and the required quarterly meetings on the Isthmus. These duties do not
occupy or command all the time of the other Commissioners, who are per-

1 James T. Rogers, Broome County Republican assemblyman, for three years Repub-
lican leader of the Assembly, and Sherman Moreland, Chemung Republican assembly-
man, had both supported Wadsworth. In so doing Rogers abandoned his own ex-
pectation of political advancement

125

nutted and are able to engage in other pursuits; whereas Bishop will spend his
whole time on «the commission.^

2. In addition to being a regular Commissioner, he will be made a mem-
ber of the Executive Committee of three, of which the other members are
Chairman Shonts and Governor Magoon. He will be required, therefore, to
attend the meetings of the Executive Committee here and on the Isthmus, as
well as the meetings of the Commission.

3. He will also act as third administrative officer in rank in charge of the
office of the Commission in Washington. He will be required to hold himself
in readiness, in case of the absence of the Chairman, Mr. Shonts, and of the
Assistant Chief, Mr. Pepperman, to sign vouchers and pay rolls and to take
charge of the office. . . .

4. He will also be required to keep and maintain a complete and accurate
record of all the acts of the Commission, to follow closely and intimately the
work on the canal, and to be prepared at all times to supply information m
regard to the doings of the Commission and the progress of the work to
Senators and Representatives and to all other persons entitled to the same.

These various duties will require all his time all the year round, making it
impossible for him, like four of the other Commissioners, to engage in other
occupation.

It may be that the Executive Committee of three will be abolished, as I am
inclined to think it should be; but Mr. Bishop will doubtless be made its
secretary; so that he will have to be both on the Isthmus and here, and will of
' course have to have the ordinary secretarial work that the Secretary of the
Commission should perform. Four of the Commissioners are in effect only
consulting engineers and their duties take but a small portion of their time.
He will be the Secretary of the Commission with all that it implies, just as
Mr. Loeb is the Secretary to the President. I know of no man whom I deem
as well qualified to act as Commissioner and Secretary whom I could get for
the salary to be paid.

My dear Senator, I need hardly say to you that in my opinion any attempt
to cut down the salaries of the important officials of the Isthmus is, from the
standpoint of accomplishing the work effectively, ruinous m the extreme.
We are undertaking on Panama a gigantic task, the largest piece of engineer-
ing ever done. The employment of the men engaged on it is temporary
merely, yet it will require the highest order of ability if it is to be done
economically, honestly, and efficiently. We cannot get men fit for the work
to undertake it unless they are well paid. In the end they will be left to seek
other employment and will have no such reputations as if engaged in the
private enterprises of a similar magnitude. Their work is infinitely more
difficult than any private work, for nothing can free them from the red tape
inseparably connected with government work, and I am sorry to say that it
is evident nothing can free them from attacks of the basest sort upon their
characters by some of our political opponents in Congress. The work on the

126

Isthmus is being done admirably. The organization is good. The mistakes
have been extraordinarily few. More damage is done by far by those of our
political opponents who attack the Commission purely for political reasons,
than can be credited to all the shortcomings which they profess to attack put
together on the part of the Commission and its subordinates. To try to cut
down the salaries of these men is to put a premium upon corruption and
inefficiency. Men like Shonts, Stevens, Bishop, Magoon, Ross, 1 and Benson 2
are doing work of far greater value than their salaries represent. We cannot
keep these men if they are to be treated with niggardliness and parsimony in
addition to being held up to public opprobrium. They are not in the position
of the ordinary public man who is accustomed to political attacks and who
knows that there can be no financial reward for his services. These men can-
not be shielded from attack, no matter how unjustifiable the attack may be,
but they can be decently paid and supported as long as they act decently; and
on any other conditions we shall not be able to get men of the right type to
do the work. Sincerely yours

3780 • TO THOMAS COLLIER PLATT Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, January 7, 1906

My dear Senator Platt: Events make it necessary to hurry matters on the
question of the District Attorneyship, for it now appears probable that the
new District Attorney will have to begin by undertaking one of the most
important suits that has been undertaken at all by the Department of Justice. 1
This renders it imperative that the very best man obtainable in point of pro-
fessional qualifications and private character shall be put in. I am happy to
be able to say that I have succeeded in doing what both you and I feared I
should be unable to accomplish, and that is got one of those three men whom
we agreed would be admirably fitted for the place to say that he will accept
if the position is tendered to him. This is Henry L. Stimson. I very earnestly
hope you can see your way clear to support him, for Moody wishes to confer
with him this week on the matter mentioned above.

With regards to Mrs. Platt, believe me, Sincerely yours

3781 • to Leonard wood Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 8, 1906

Dear Leonard: I have been greatly concerned at hearing, from two or three
sources, that the hot and damp climate of the Philippines has injuriously af-
fected the wound in your head made by the recent surgical operation. After
thinking it over I decided to place you at once in command of the Philippine

1 David W. Ross, general purchasing officer of the Isthmian Canal Commission

a Ernest S. Benson, general auditor of the Isthmian Canal Commission

‘The prosecution of the American Sugar Refining Company and the New York

Central Railroad for their violation of the Elkins Act.

127

Division, recalling Corbin. Taft did this by cable yesterday. Weston 1 will be
placed under you in Luzon and Tasker Bliss 2 in Mindanao. I do this so that
the assignment to duty in command of the Philippine Division may be part
of your record; but under the conditions I think it most unwise that you
should continue in the ordinary course of events to remain in a tropical
climate. Unless you can give me special reasons to the contrary I propose,
after you have been two or three months in command, to order you home,
via Suez, with permission to remain in Europe for six months, where I want
you to take a complete rest in body and mind, and to give your wound an
opportunity to thoroughly heal. I think it best you should be within striking
distance of that English surgeon. My idea is that in all probability it will be
wise for you not to return even after this rest to a tropical climate — unless,
of course, there should be some extraordinary demand for your presence
which we cannot now foresee. I intend to carry out this plan unless you can
give me what I am willing to accept as good reasons why I should not, and I
expect you to write me fully and frankly. My concern is for your health and
well-being, not alone for your own sake but for the sake of the army, for as
you know, I regard you as probably the best man — certainly one of the two
or three best men — in the army. 8

Give my love to Mrs. Wood Faithfully yours

3782 • TO JOHN PITCHER Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 8, 1906

My dear Major Pitcher: Is it true that Johnny Golf was mauled by a moun-
tain lion and has gone to a hospital? Do let me know about it. I am interested
for Johnny’s sake; and besides, I have a zoological interest and am anxious to
know how the job was done.

I trust you and Mrs. Pitcher will be in Washington this winter. Can you
not come to the Army and Navy reception and supper afterwards, on Febru-
ary 8th? Faithfully yours

3783 • TO I.UKE EDWARD WRIGHT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 8, 1906

My dear Governor Wright: Root tells me that the Japanese are pressing for
an answer as to whom we shall appoint as Ambassador. They have appointed

‘John Francis Weston, Commissary General, United States Army.

“Tasker Howard Bliss succeeded Wood as commander of the Department of
Mindanao, 1906-1909, and as commander of the Philippine Division, December 1908-
April 1909. A professional soldier of marked administrative ability and intellectual
distinction, he served as Chief of Staff of the Army during most or the First World
War. He was later one of the most effective members of the American Peace Com-
mission m Paris.

“Wood’s health improved; he remained m command of the Philippine Division
until 1908 when he returned to command the Department of the East.

128

one, 1 and he is one of their most distinguished men among their half-dozen
leading statesmen. It is important for us at once to announce our Ambassador
Now, my dear fellow, I hope you have made up your mind that you will
accept and that you will notify me accordingly. As you know, for the
reasons I told you, I feel it very important that you should go as Ambassador
to Japan and that Smith should be put m as Governor of the Philippines.
I have carefully considered the matter from every point of view, and from the
standpoint of the general interest of this country I feel it of the utmost con-
sequence that both appointments should be made and that I should be able
to announce both appointments immediately. It is one of the cases where I
want you to say yes, because the public interests, m my judgment — and the
accident of my position gives me the best point of view from which to
determine the public interests as a whole — require your acceptance, just as
they require that Smith shall sacrifice his own feelings, and accept. I need not
go over what I said to you the other night. Suffice it that I not only believe
that you are peculiarly qualified to do admirable work in Japan, as Smith is to
do excellent work in the Philippines, but that outside considerations render
it important that both positions should be filled as I have indicated. When
you advise me of your acceptance I shall have Ide communicated with at
once, so that he may resign m advance if he does not care to continue under
Smith. Now, do wire me at once your acceptance, and remember that I want
you in Japan as much as I wanted Taft in my Cabinet when I got him to leave
the Philippines; 2 and I want Smith 3 as Governor of the Philippines just as
I wanted you as Governor of the Philippines at the time I took Taft here.

With warm regards to Mrs Wright, and looking forward to seeing you
both, I am, Sincerely yours

3784 • TO FRANCIS CABOT LOWELL Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 8, 1906

My dear Frank . That is a first-class article 1 and I agree substantially with
everything contained therein. We need an the diplomatic service examinations
for the secretaries. Theie are plenty of young fellows of education who
would like to go over and be secretaries. Some of them are fit for nothing else
under God’s Heaven. They are not fit to rise in the service and they are not
fit to do anything at home, but they are excellent people to perform what

1 Viscount Siuzo Aoki

2 Wright accepted Roosevelt’s appointment and remained m Japan until he became
Secretary of War, July 1, 1908

8 General James F Smith became Governoi General of the Philippines m September
1906,

1 Francis Cabot Lowell, “American Diplomacy,” Atlantic Monthly , 97 1-7 (January
1906). In this article Lowell compared the European with the American diplomat to
the disadvantage of the former The European, trained in ritual, lacked the resiliency
of the American who was rarely trained at all.

129

might be called the pink-tea duties of their profession. There are others who
are really good men. Of these, most stay in the service as secretaries for
three or four years and then come back here as they ought to to go into
business or politics or something of that land. But now and then, in excep-
tional cases, they can rise — as for instance, the present Ministers, Riddle and
Gnscom, and the present Ambassador White had risen. But as a rule the
more important positions as Ambassadors and Ministers should not be filled
by promotion from the secretaries of legation, but by choice from outside
branches of American political, literary and business life. This does not apply
to the consular service, where the best consuls we have are those who have
been promoted to their present positions after long and faithful service. The
duties of a consul general have little in common with those of a big diplomat,
and there is almost no chance that he will ever have to show the initiative,
resolution and power of independent action shown in varying degrees by the
men you mentioned — Washburne, 2 Conger, Meyer and others.

With regards to Mrs. Lowell, Always yours

3785 * TO JETER CONNELLY PRITCHARD Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 9, 1906

My dear Judge : 1 All right, I shall do nothing whatever in the matter.
McLaurin is a good fellow, but that letter to you is pretty wild. So far from
its being true that the warmth of my reception was due to the belief that I
intended to inaugurate a new white party, I think that any suspicion that
I had such an idea in my head would have made my whole trip a flat failure. 2

fi Elihu Benjamin Washburne, congressman from Illinois, 1853-1869, had been
minister to France during the Franco-Prussian War. He was the only diplomat to
stay at his post during the Commune of 1871.

1 Jeter Connelly Pritchard, for many years the dominant Republican in North Caro-

lina, United States Senator, 1895-1903; an advocate of Populist reforms, protection,
and white supremacy as occasions demanded. On appointments from Roosevelt,
Pritchard served as Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, 1903-
1904, and judge of the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, 1 904-1 921.
fl Roosevelt, during his southern tour in the autumn of 1905, had spoken on racial
problems with more restraint than he had displayed m most pre-election addresses
on that issue. The President did not abandon his earlier views, but instead of em-
phasizing the evils of lynching, he concentrated on the merits of B. T. Washington’s
industrial and agricultural program for the Negro. Southern audiences responded
with enthusiasm. The Virginia Legislature, m a gesture as friendly as it was futile,
passed a resolution endorsing Roosevelt for a third term. Political reporters, hungry
for news, continued to exaggerate the meaning of these developments. Throughout
the fall and winter they suggested that Roosevelt was seeking a third term. To this
end, they reported the President was about to turn out incumbent Southern Negroes
and replace them, in the South with whites recommended by B. T. Washmgton, and
in the North with Northern Negroes. The New York Herald on January 14 pre-
dicted such turnovers m six cases of which only one — the replacement of Judson
W. Lyons by William T. Vernon — materialized. There was no “new white party.”

130

Moreover, I should think my good Senator (for he is a good fellow) would
understand that it was useless to talk to me of accepting a third term. Under
no consideration would I do so. I will not even discuss the proposition. My
decision is definite and irrevocable.

With regard, Sincerely yours

3786 * TO NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER Roosevelt MSS.

Private Washington, January 10, 1906

Dear Murray: So far from SchifFs speech producing any effect, it has fallen
absolutely flat. Not a Senator or a Congressman has been influenced by it,
and the great majority of the businessmen who write me — including Jimmy
Speyer — warn me to pay no heed to it. He was talking hysterically as re-
gards the panic, and the only definite thing he said in his speech was to oppose
Shaw’s plan, which is a pretty good plan and which in some modified form
is the only thing which there is the remotest chance of passing at the mo-
ment. 1 In other words, Schiff, instead of doing any service to the cause he
professes to advocate, has done what little he could to prevent our passing
any remedial legislation for the state of affairs which he describes as so bad
and which I also believe to be very bad. I do not think there is any chance
whatever of getting any currency legislation this session. I am inclined to
make a resolute effort next session, but it will be the Jimmy Speyers and not
the Jacob Schiffs upon whom we shall have to rely for help, and I can only
pass it if I have intelligent outside help.

It was delightful having you here the other day. Faithfully yours

[Handwritten] P.S Just at the moment the people at large, and therefore
Congress too, seem to be Lawson-ized, so to speak. They are so jumpy, even
about reform, that it is difficult to get coherent — that is, effective — action
from them.

*In an address to the New York Chamber of Commerce on January 4, Schiff de-
nounced the American banking and currency system as a disgrace to any civilized
nation and predicted that, unless the currency was made more elastic, a large-scale
panic would develop. His prediction caused a temporary drop in Wall Street prices,
but most bankers and brokers interpreted his warning as referring to the remote
future.

Schiff, m the same address, criticized Shaw’s plan to relieve the inelasticity of
the currency. Shaw had proposed that the national banks be permitted to issue
additional currency up to 50 per cent of their existing legal quotas, the additional
notes to bear a tax of 5 or 6 per cent. This plan, Shaw maintained, would provide, in
periods of stringency, funds for loans which banks and borrowers, because of the
tax, would retire as quickly as possible Schiff, however, argued that, since legiti-
mate business could not stand a tax of 5 per cent, only speculators would benefit.
Frank A. Vanderlip endorsed Schiffs criticism which, apparently, expressed the
consensus of New York financiers. The Secretary’s plan was never authorized. See
No. 3789.

3787 * to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, January 11, 1906

To the Secretary of State : General Ybeni 1 told Mr. Archibald, 2 the corre-
spondent, that the Venezuelans could not deal with the United States while
the ultimatum was in force; that it had never been withdrawn. 3 Mr. Archibald
says that they now have twelve 8 -inch guns at La Guaira and several at Porto
Cabello, and that it would be a serious affair to attack them at all. Castro is
furnishing his army, contains 15,000 men, with good arms. 4
When is Mr. Calhoun’s report to be made> 5

3788 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 1 1, 1906

To the Secretary of War: I thank you for sending me the report on the
possible operations against Canton in the event of hostilities with China, 1 and
the report proposing the concentration of the army in summer camps next
summer, which I return herewith. As to the first, the possible operations
against Canton, I ask only that the Department be absolutely certain that we
provide amply in the way of an expeditionary force. The Chinese army is far

• 1 Roosevelt probably meant Alejandro Ybarra, Venezuelan Minister of Foreign
Affairs.

8 James Francis Jewell Archibald, veteran war correspondent, during his periodic
trips to Venezuela had reported the recurrent crises of the Castro administration.

3 The United States had issued no ultimatum in the usual sense of the word, but
Hay, in a dispatch to Bowen of March 10, 1905, warned Venezuela that if the “mod-
erate request” of the United States for an arbitration arrangement covering the
Bermudez Company case and other outstanding issues were “peremptorily refused,”
the United States might be “compelled to resort to more vigorous measures” (For-
eign Relations , 1905, pp. 1027-1028). In the months that followed Venezuela contin-
ued to refuse an agreement, the Bermudez case remained unsettled, and the United
States neither moderated the tone of Hay’s dispatch nor acted upon it.

4 Castro had good reason for these military preparations. Not only was he m trouble
with the United States but he was near war with Colombia Furthermore, his delays
in paying Venezuela’s debts and his cancellation of French cable concessions had
provoked France to sever diplomatic relations.

® Calhoun had returned to the United States. He had not reported officially, but he
had informed Root that the litigation m the Bermudez case had been “conducted m
an exceedingly harsh manner” resulting in “a degree of injustice toward the com-
pany.” — Foreign Relations , 1905, pp. 1002-1003.

1 China had responded to American immigration restrictions by informal boycotts of

American goods Supplementing the boycotts were riots and attacks on American

merchants and missionaries. The Chinese viceroy at Canton undertook an investi-
gation of the disturbances, but it was clear that the Chinese government really sup-

ported the actions of the citizens. Both Roosevelt and Root sympathized with the

boycott m theory, as a protest against the immigration restrictions, but they insisted
naturally on redress for damages to American life and property. Their demands were
met and the boycott was abandoned later m 1906, see No. 3876, Jessup, Root, II,
45-51; Foreign Relations, 1906, Part I, pp. 308-324.

132

more formidable than it was five years ago, and we all of us recollect the
difficulties and losses that accomplished the capture of Tientsin. I suggest that
we make the first force of at least 15,000 men, 5,000 to follow within a
month. We ought not to take any chances. We cannot afford a disaster.

As for the memorandum on the subject of concentration of the army by
marching to summer camps next year, I absolutely agree in what is said as to
the way in which this would exercise the whole army under field conditions
in the field, and would harden the participants as if it was a campaign. Unless
there is good reason to the contrary I direct that substantially the plan given
in this memorandum be adopted for next year and be carried out, and that
every effort be made to secure the appropriations from Congress, and if
Congress will not take action that we do all we can with the appropriations
that we have. Can you not in person bring the matter before Congress and
dwell upon the urgent necessity that the plan be adopted 5 3

3789 ' TO NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal ' Washington, January 12, 1906

Dear Murray. I do not think you caught my meaning. You say that “what
Schiff said was true as gospel and nobody denies it, but because Schiff says
it it will not have any effect.” This is not at all what I meant. What Schiff said
as to the danger is as true as gospel and was what Shaw already had said,
although it was expressed by Schiff with a hysterical overemphasis which
would of course be out of place from a Government official; but Schiff
marred the effect of what he said by attacking the remedy Shaw proposed —
the only remedy which had been officially proposed and the only remedy
which at that time there was a chance of getting. In other words, Schiff, so
far from helping, distinctly hurt the situation — that is, he did a little good
by calling increased attention to the need of action, but he did more harm by
making it more difficult to get action. I am grateful to any man who will
accentuate the need of currency reform. I am irritated with any man who
increases the difficulty of getting it. Schiff has done both. Understand me.
If we had the best system of currency imaginable, it would not prevent our
“drifting into a dangerous industrial and financial position.” It would at best
make the drift slightly slower and the chance of recovery slightly quicker.
It is not Congress that is to blame, save in a very secondary sense. It is the
business community of the United States. The panic of ’93 was only due in
small part to the fact that the tariff reformers of that day pushed on Congress
to do exactly what they would like to push it on to do now. It was due chiefly

“The Army appropriation bill of 1906 provided $700,000 to enable the militia to
combine with the Regular Army in maneuvers at seven summer camps The bill,
introduced by Representative Hull on February 8, 1906, was approved by the Presi-
dent on June 19.

133

to the fact that there had been an era of overconfidence and speculation, and
the reaction came with the smash. Sooner or later we shall undoubtedly have
such a reaction again. Congress ought to do everything in its power to
minimize the evil consequences thereof, and for its failure Congress is justly
to be condemned; but the chief condemnation rests upon the American
people themselves. Always yours

3790 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 13, 1906

Blessed Kermit: I think that was awfully nice of you, sending the flowers
to the poor Higginson boy’s funeral.

Some Oklahoma ranchmen suddenly presented me with a pin, which I
enclose to you. I thought the little gold bear holding the pearl was rather
good, and that you might like it. It is really a nice pin.

Of course do not let anybody know that I am inclined to favor a lock
canal, but speak as if you were advocating it because that was the side assigned
to you. Also, do not let anyone get hold of the letter of Stevens to Shonts on
the subject. This is very important, and the best thing to do is not to let
anyone know you have it in your possession.

I have passed a very busy week, but I had one good ride with Mother,
and another day I got a fairly good walk by myself.

The wedding presents have begun to arrive for Sister. 1 Ever your loving
father

3791 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY . Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 16, 1906

To the Attorney General: I guess Yale ’78 has the call, as there seems to be
no Rough Rider available and every individual in the Southern District of the
Indian Territory (including each Rough Rider), appears to be either under
indictment, convicted, or in a position that renders it imperatively necessary
that he should be indicted. Let us therefore appoint George Walker, Yale ’78,
charge to Taft, and see if the Senate (God Bless them!) will confirm him. 1
[Handwritten] Put in Cochran for A. C. if you think him all right. 2

1 Alice Roosevelt married Nicholas Longworth at the White House on February 17
“against a background which bristled with ‘officialdom. 1 ” A Porcellian Club meeting
was held immediately after the wedding

1 The Senate confirmed the nomination of George R. Walker for United States At-
torney for the Southern District of Indian Territory.

2 In spite of this authorization Moody retained Appointment Clerk Charles B Sorn-
borger.

134

3 79 2 ’ T0 benjamin ide wheeler

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, January 18, 1906

My dear President Wheeler . I took the liberty of sending the various things
you sent me on to the Outlook . I think we shall get Lane confirmed in the
end.

As for Arizona and New Mexico, you and I agree entirely. The only
reason I want them in as one State now is that I fear the alternative is having
them in as two States three or four years hence. It is an important but by no
means a vital matter. Sincerely yours

3793 • to the general staff, war department Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, January 22, 1906

To the General Staff , War Department: Is there a plan developed for the
campaign against Venezuela, including the transports, and so forth? Any such
campaign should be undertaken with a force so large as to minimize the
chance of effective resistance.

3794 ■ to Leonard wood Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, January 22, 1906

Dear Leonard: I regarded your letter as not merely very interesting but very
able. I entirely agree with you about fortifying the Sandwich Islands; and
wish you had a little experience in the difficulties of getting Congress to
agree with me in such matters! Moreover, I entirely agree with you that we
can retain the Philippines only so long as we have a first-class fighting navy,
superior to the navy of any possible opponent. I do not for a moment agree,
however, that Japan has any immediate intention of moving against us in
the Philippines. Her eyes for some time to come will be directed toward
Korea and southern Manchuria. If she attacked us and met disaster, she
would lose everything she has gained in the war with Russia; and if she
attacked us and won, she would make this republic her envenomed $nd
resolute foe for all time, and would without question speedily lose the
alliance with Great Britain and see a coalition between Russia, the United
States, and very possibly Germany and France to destroy her in the Far East.
No man can prophesy about the future, but I see not the slightest chance of
Japan attacking us in the Philippines for a decade or two, or until the present
conditions of international politics change

I entirely agree with you m what you say about the Chinese situation.
Under no circumstances would I ever approve any legislation admitting any
form of Chinese labor into the United States; and I agree entirely with your
criticism upon the English colonies. 1

1 See No, 3796.

135

As for what you say about the legislation for the Philippine Islands, I
agree with most of it, but I am amused at your falling into the common
mistake of thinking that the United States shipping laws apply to the islands.
They do not have any application to the Philippine Islands at all. The ship-
ping regulations of the islands are subject to the Commission, and the Ameri-
can coastwise shipping laws as yet have never been applied to the islands. I am
trying to prevent their being applied, 2 and I am also trying to secure the
abolition of the Philippine tariff. 3

With love to Mrs. Wood, believe me, Faithfully yours

3 795 • TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 22, 1906

My dear Sir George: Yes, Mrs. Roosevelt and I are both as fond as you are
of the immortal Soapy Sponge; 1 but I shall be very grateful if you will send
me that copy, because the only copy we have in the house is one Mrs

2 By the terms of the Frye Act of 1903, shipping between the Philippine Islands and
the United States was to be confined after July 1906 to American vessels. Roosevelt
in his annual message had requested postponement until 1909 to prevent dislocations
an the Philippine economy. In the House of Representatives, Littlefield of Maine,
leading the opposition to extended postponement, argued that foreign exporters in
Manila were discriminating against American shippers. In the Senate other Republi-
cans tried to combine the bill with a pending measure to subsidize the Merchant
Marine. Nevertheless the bill, guided by Crumpacker and Lodge, was approved in
April by both chambers without roll call

8 Once again Republican protectionists m the Senate prevented a reduction of duties
on Philippine products entering the United States. The bill to that end, after passing
the House, failed to reach the floor of the Senate. From this defeat, however, Roose-
velt may have salvaged something. Such was the view of contemporary analysts who
discerned an interesting relationship between the bill and the President’s railroad pro-
gram.

During debate on the Philippine tariff in the House, Democrats and Republican
revisionists raised the whole issue of protection, and particularly, because of the dif-
ficulties existing with Germany, of reciprocity. The Washington Post on January 8
suggested that Cannon, alarmed by this debate, would expedite Roosevelt’s railroad
program m return for reduced pressure from the Administration on the general tariff
question Referring to the Senate, the New York Journal of Co?mnerce on March 3
maintained that the President had not pushed tariff revision for fear of creating party
ruptures which w r ould adversely affect the railroad bill Earlier, on Febiuary 28, the
same paper had been less cautious in delineating a tariff-railroad bargain between
the senatorial followers of Aldrich and those of Roosevelt. To this view the Cleveland
Plain Dealer on March 3 at least m pait subscribed

For such a bargain there is evidence beyond these newspaper reports (see notes,
Numbers 3348, 3530, and Appendix I in Volume IV of this work, and No. 3878,
below). If it did exist, either tacitly or explicitly, it affords some explanation for the
defeat of the Philippine bill m the Senate, for the subordination of larger tariff
issues m the House, for the overwhelming victory of the Hepburn Bill m the House,
achieved m part because of the steam-roller tactics of the presiding officer, and for
Roosevelt’s irritation with Aldrich and the Old Guard for their attitude and tactics
aftei the Hepburn Bill reached the Senate.

Robert Smith Surtees, Soapy Sponge's Sporting Tour (London, 1893), first pub-
lished in 1853 Wlt h the title Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour

I 36

Roosevelt inherited from her father. It is a rather cheap American edition,
though with the Cruikshank pictures, and we have read it until it has prac-
tically tumbled to pieces. So you see I am greedily closing with your offer!

You may be amused at an expression of opinion on literary matters the
other day by a man over here to whom I have taken a great liking. He is
Stevens, whom I have appointed as the Chief Engineer to build the Panama
Canal — as responsible an appointment as I have in my gift. He was originally
a backwoods boy from Maine, who married on a salary of sixty dollars a
month, and has done an immense amount of hard railroad engineering work
m the West. I never supposed he had any particular literary tastes, but I
happened to find out that he read a great deal and that he has the same trick
that I have of reading over and over again books for which he really cares.
His favorite books are, all of Macaulay, all of Scott, the poetry of Edgar Allan
Poe (this I regard as astounding); and as individual books, Mark Twain’s
Huckleberry Finn, which he reads continually, Loma Doone, and Whyte
Melville’s Gladiators. The last two I like myself; but the others, including
Huckleberry Finn, I regard as classics.

Just at present I am having a rough-and-tumble time with Congress, and
have been enjoying the experience of keeping my temper resolutely under
every kind of provocation. I have four or five measures I am anxious to get
through, namely, first and foremost, the appropriations for the Panama Canal,
second, the railway rate legislation, third, the Philippine tariff, fourth, the
Santo Domingo treaty, and fifth, joint statehood for the territories, or at least
for Oklahoma and Indian Territory. I think I shall get the first three all
right (and they are the most important) and there is a chance of my getting
the last two. To succeed in getting measures like these through one has to be
a rough-and-tumble man oneself; and I find it a great comfort to like all kinds
of books, and to be able to get half an hour or an hour’s complete rest and
complete detachment from tie fighting of the moment, by plunging into the
genius and misdeeds of Marlborough, or the wicked perversity of James II,
or the brilliant battle for human freedom fought by Fox — or in short, any-
thing that Macaulay wrote or that you have written, or any one of most of
the novels of Scott and of some of the novels of Thackeray and Dickens; or
to turn to Hawthorne or Poe; or to Longfellow, who I think has been under-
estimated of late years, by the way.

With many thanks, Sincerely yours

3796 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss

Washington, January 23, 1906

My dear Mr. Reid: Do you recollect writing me of certain strictures about
our handling of the Philippines by a certain Englishman who has been the

137

head of the Malay colonies? In a letter which Wood has just sent me he writes
as follows:

I sincerely hope that no legislation admitting any form of Chinese labor into
the United States will ever become law. Anyone who has seen the Chinese in the
coast cities of China would rather see the Pacific coast, or any portion of the
United States, sunk m the ocean than covered with these people. As a get-rich-
cpiick scheme for large landowners who do not want to be bothered with the
independence of white labor, coolie labor is a fine thing, but countries developed
by coolie labor have to be defended by white men brought from somewhere else.
Nothing more discouraging exists than the condition of the English colonies
developed by this system. Remove the English garrisons, and they would be a
prey to any aggregation of a few thousand men who wanted to take them. They
have neither patriotism nor morals. Their revenues come mostly from women,
opium and gambling. Commercial taxes are light, and a few white men and others
make large fortunes, but no national spirit is developed.

From a good deal of inquiry I am convinced that Wood is entirely right.
Without question we could find something to copy in some of the British
colonies, especially in Cromer’s handling of Egypt; but the far eastern
British colonies, notably those in the Malay country, can be studied with
most benefit by us only with the purpose of learning what to avoid.

It was delightful seeing you and Mrs. Reid. Sincerely yours

3797 • to francis ellington leupp Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 24, 1906

My dear Leupp: I am sorry to say that after reading over your report con-
cerning the Choctaw and Chickasaw coal lands I am constrained to agree
with you. I am very fond of Colonel Lyon and I should have liked to have
been able to feel justified in doing as he wished. But it seems to me that your
position is the only sound and proper one, and I admire the admirable fairness,
the good temper and good judgment with which you have stated both sides
of the case. 1 Sincerely yours

1 The disposition of the Choctaw-Chickasaw coal and asphalt lands is an excellent
example of the divergent interests of the government and the Indians, and the diffi-
culty of resolving the conflicts between these mteiests An agreement between the
Indians and the Dawes Commission of 1902 had provided that these valuable lands
would be segregated by the Secretary of the Interior and sold at auction within three
years By the terms of the agreement the proceeds of the sale would go entirely to
the Indians. Hitchcock and Leupp, however, were divided over future plans for the
segregated area. Hitchcock, justifiably afraid that the sale of lands m unlimited
amounts would encourage private exploitation of the coal tracts, proposed several
safeguards (a) restricting plot sales to a 960-acre maximum, (b) government col-
lection of royalties on all coal sold, (c) the royalties to be used exclusively to edu-
cate Indian children. Leupp, on the other hand, favored making the area a corpora-
tion for which government officials and Indian representatives would serve as
directors and in which Indians would hold stock. Congress agreed with Hitchcock
that the coal land should not go in large tracts to individuals but felt that it should
not be incorporated or bought by the government. In such a pass, the entire area was
withdrawn from sale while Congress deliberated further on the problem.

138

379 s # T0 !AN STANDISH MONTEITH HAMILTON Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, January 24, 1906

My dear General Hamilton : 1 1 think your Staff Officer’s Scrap-book much
the best thing that has appeared about the Japanese war. Didn’t you see more
fighting* I should give a good deal to get your criticisms upon the great
battles which closed at Mukden. I trust you will go on and publish another
volume.

By the way, I want to express the most cordial agreement with the senti-
ments you express as to the need of encouraging the fighting qualities, morally
and physically, in the average individual soldier, and therefore in the average
individual citizen; and with what you say as to the preposterous ignorance of
all our people in the matter of the relative superiority of at least certain
forms of barbarian over the hypercivilized man of the great industrial centers,
and especially of the cities. In the small military experience which I have had
and in the study that I have been forced officially and practically to make of
the fighting in the Philippines I was immensely struck by the superiority of
the man who had been bred in the open or was accustomed to the open,
who knew how to take cover and to handle horse and rifle, over the ordinary
clerk or mechanic or similar individual from the great industrial centers.
I reckoned that on the average the former was just about three times as good
as the latter. Of course there were exceptions and plenty of them, for the
moral is more than the physical; and a city-bred man with the right ambi-
tions, the right standards, who has taken advantage of his opportunities to do
something as regards horsemanship and marksmanship and is eager to learn,
can speedily turn himself into a thoroughly good soldier. But speaking
roughly what I have said is true. Moreover, it is disheartening to see the way
the materialists of this day and generation come to think of absolutely nothing
but money and the most vacuous kind of soft, material luxury; while the
idealists in at least too many cases construct an ideal which is not only fan-
tastic but excessively undesirable, and in the horror of war — which they

The Indians, on their side, were anxious to have large-scale mining begin as
soon as possible. They also, quite reasonably, demanded sale either to the govern-
ment or to private citizens. In the fall of 1905, ignoring the government policy,
Green McCurtam, the head of the Choctaw tribe, had negotiated contracts for
sale with a group of individuals including Cecil A. Lyon. The Indians hoped that
Lyon would use his political influence with Roosevelt to obtain approval of this
transaction These contracts were subsequently ruled illegal, having neither Roose-
velt’s nor Hitchcock’s approval. A complete stalemate thus resulted, and legislation
providing for sale of the land was not passed until 1912.

For discussion of the Choctaw-Chickasaw coal lands see Leupp, The Indian
and His Problem (New York, 1910), pp. 338-341, Debo, And Still the Waters Run ,
pp. 79-81, 261-263.

1 Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, a celebrated British professional soldier, com-
manded the Allied forces at Gallipoli in 1915. In A Staff Officer's Scrap-book , “he
managed to convey,” in one critic’s opmion, “more of the meaning of war than any
writer since Tolstoy.” His later diary, written when he commanded the Mediter-
ranean Expeditionary Force, is an incomparable record of World War I.

139

profess and inculcate, tend to produce a habit of mind under the effect of
which the military or warlike virtues tend to atrophy. I do not however share
your disbelief in Hague conferences and similar meetings. I think they can
do a great deal if they are managed in a spirit of sanity; and the Japanese army
itself has certainly shown that the most reckless indifference to death and
the most formidable fighting capacity can be combined with a scrupulous
compliance with all the modern ideas as regards proper treatment of prison-
ers, proper care of the wounded, abstention from plunder, and so forth, and
so forth. But nothing should interfere with our cultivation of the stern and
hardy virtues. Sincerely yours

3799 ■ to jane addams Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 24, 1906

My dear Miss Addams: Good for you! I shall see Mr. Neill, 1 and tell him to
. keep me informed if there is anything I can do to help out.

Will you let me say a word of very sincere thanks to you for the eminent
sanity, good humor and judgment you always display in pushing matters you
have at heart 3 I have such awful times with reformers of the hysterical and
sensational stamp, and yet I so thoroughly believe in reform, that I fairly
revel in dealing with anyone like you. 2

With all good wishes, believe me, Sincerely yours

3800 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 26, 1906

Sir: In view of the fact that there seems to be no opportunity for action
before the courts against the counsel of the beef packers, who, it appears from
District Attorney Morrison’s statement, has been guilty of bribing a reporter,
— • the reporter having disseminated false and misleading statements as to the
case against the beef trust — it seems to me that the only course left is to
publish Mr. Morrison’s letter and the other documents in the case. This I
direct to be done. 1 Extraordinary efforts have been made in this case, as in

1 Charles Patrick Neill, professor of political economy, Catholic University, Washing-
ton, 1897-1905; United States Commissioner of Labor, 190J-1913; member of the
United States Immigration Commission, 1907-1910. In March 1906, Roosevelt ordered
Neill and James B. Reynolds to investigate conditions in the Chicago stockyards
* Among her many activities, Miss Addams, at this time, was organizing a boys’ club
at Hull House and working to improve methods of appointment and promotion of
teachers in the Chicago public schools.

1 Charles B. Morrison, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois,

then prosecuting the beef trust, had written Moody on January 18 that George W.
Brown, an attorney for the packers, had offered money to two reporters, Hasler of

the Chicago Inter Ocean and Elwell of the Chicago City Press, to persuade them to
favor the packers in their articles on the case The money had been offered as a
Christmas present. Elwell, after declining the gift, reported it to Morrison. Brown

140

one or two similar cases, to poison the public mind by the dissemination of
false and misleading statements, and it is right that the public should know
why and how their circulation is secured. Very truly yours

3801 * TO NELSON WILMARTH ALDRICH Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 26, 1906

My dear Senator Aldrich : I enclose a copy of my letter to Mr. Leupp and of
his answer. It seems to me that these pretty conclusively cover the case. 1

I thoroughly enjoyed my talk with you the other evening and regard it as
very important. I have not seen the Speaker since and doubt if it is well to
speak to him until I hear from you; but I have spoken to both Moody and
Taft and held short conversations, on their own initiative, with Dolliver and
Beveridge, both of whom knew, I think, from you the purpose of your visit
to me. I also spoke with Crane m the presence of Taft and Moody. Taft says
I was wrong on one point which I was inclined to acquiesce in about the
Philippine sugar schedule; but I told him as well as Moody that nothing
whatever definite had been agreed to, that there was simply a purpose to see
if we could not get a policy which would mean a substantial advance and
with which there could be something like a general agreement. Sincerely
yowrs

3802 • TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt MsS t

Washington, January 27, 1906

Dear Ted: Professor Munsterberg was down here the other day and to my
delight he told me you were getting along well. In a quavering voice I asked
him if he included studies and he said he did — from which I guess that
hitherto you have succeeded in imposing on the faculty! In less than three
weeks I shall see you on here at Sister’s wedding. I gather from your letters
to Mother and Sister that you are having a pretty good time. I am enjoying
myself, too, which seems strange if you look only at the daily press. (Secre-
tary Root, who has been listening in an offensive spirit to this statement, has
remarked to Senator Lodge, who has been listening in an equally offensive
spirit, that “there is no accounting for tastes.”) Your loving father

later admitted giving Hasler money, but he demed that it was a bribe and denied
that his clients knew of the gift In accordance with Roosevelt’s directions, Moody
released the President’s letter and that of Morrison. See Washington Post , January 27,
1906.

1 The continuing issue of allotment of tribal funds to sectarian schools see No. 3465,
Roosevelt to Leupp, January 25, 1906, and Roosevelt to Aldrich, January 21, 1906,
Roosevelt Mss

3803 • TO FRENCH ENSOR CHADWICK RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 30, 1906

My dear Admiral: I have your letter of the 2d instant. For your own private
information I shall say that my own belief has always been that the new
President and the new Congress should go into office together on the first of
the new year — that is, less than two months after being elected. Sincerely
yours

3804 • TO CHESTER ISAIAH LONG Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, January 31, 1906

My dear Senator : 1 1 entirely agree with your position, and I wish to say that
as regards the portion of Mr. Davidson’s speech you have marked, Mr. David-
son is absolutely in error. 2 Commissioner Prouty was in yesterday. He says
that the Hepbum-Dolliver bill 3 represents an advance so extraordinary that
he had never dared to suppose it would be possible to pass it, and that he is
strongly against any effort to amend it by increasing the powers along the
very lines which Mr. Davidson indicates.

I wish also to state my cordial agreement with your position in declining
to say that you would be in favor of what I recommended until you knew
what I did recommend. My position now is exactly yours. If the extremists
like Mr. Davidson should have their way they would completely block all
chance for rate legislation at all. It is useless to expect that any legislation will
satisfy those who desire the impossible. But the Hepburn-Dolliver bill will
mark a real and substantial advance in dealing with the question by doing

1 Chester Isaiah Long, Republican congressman from Kansas, 1895-1897, 1899-1903,
senator, 1903-1909. Considered a railroad senator, Long was already a favorite target
for progressive Republicans in Kansas. During the debate on the Hepburn Bill, how-
ever, he worked with Roosevelt rather than Aldrich.

a John O. Davidson, La Follette’s political associate and successor, Lieutenant Gover-
nor of Wisconsin, 1903-1906, governor, 1906-1911. At this time, like La Follette,
Davidson wanted to empower the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix railroad
rates on its own initiative on the basis of the physical valuation of railroad proper-
ties

8 The Hepburn Bill, reported favorably by a unanimous vote of the House Commit-
tee on Interstate Commerce, was being debated m the House, where, with only seven
adverse votes, it passed unamended on February 8. The bill, favored by Roosevelt,
extended the definition of transportation to include private car lines and terminal
railroads. It authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to prescribe uniform
systems of record keeping and to inspect railroad accounts. It empowered the Inter-
state Commerce Commission to declare, on complaint of a shipper, a rate unreason-
able and to proclaim a maximum, reasonable rate to take effect m thirty days. Oppo-
nents of the bill m the Senate concentrated on attempting to amend it to broaden
the scope of judicial review of decisions by the I.C.C and to delay the effective date
of these decisions. For the struggle between Roosevelt and his senatorial adversaries
over these issues, see Numbers 3811, 3822, 3823, 3824, 3827, 3833, 3837, 3844, 3868,
3874, 3878, 3882, 3883, 3884, 3893, 3903, 3905, 3907, 3914, 3917, and Appendix II. For
useful secondary accounts of the bill, see the bibliography cited in connection with
No. 3348.

142

away with abuses and benefiting the people as a whole. It is, in my judgment,
as far as we could with wisdom go at this time, and those who, like Mr. David-
son, are opposing the measure, are in reality doing all they can to prevent any
substantial relief being afforded.

I suppose the time has not yet come when I ought to be quoted; but drop
in to see me whenever you get the chance and I will go over the matter with
you. Sincerely yours

3805 • TO GEORGE EDMUND FOSS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 1, 1906

Sir: I have directed that a pardon be issued to John Paul Miller, a midshipman
at the United States Naval Academy, recently convicted of “hazing" and
sentenced to dismissal from the Academy. In the discussion of this case my
attention has been called forcibly to the unsatisfactory condition of the law
on this subject. A midshipman accused of hazing, whether the extent of his
offense be great or small, must be tried by court-martial. The findings of such
a court, if approved by the Superintendent of the Academy, are declared
final and cannot be reviewed by the Secretary of the Navy, or even by me,
and neither the court itself nor the Superintendent nor the Secretary of the
Navy has any discretion as to the punishment to be imposed. It is declared
that, in all cases of conviction, the offender shall be dismissed and be ineligible
for appointment as a commissioned officer of the Army, Navy or Marine
Corps, during a specified time. These provisions of law seem to me neither
just nor judicious, and I am seriously concerned at the injury which I fear
may be done to the discipline of the Academy and even to the future
efficiency of the Navy if they are permitted to remain in force without
amendment. I heartily disapprove of the practice of hazing, and, in common
with all those interested in the welfare of the Academy, wish to see this
practice thoroughly eradicated there. But the punishment of dismissal is
altogether disproportionate to the culpability involved in some forms of
hazing. In many cases, these amount to nothing more than exhibitions of
boyish mischief attended with no consequence of any moment to those
hazed, and indicating on the part of the hazers only some exuberance of ani-
mal spirits. Unquestionably they ought to be punished, for under any circum-
stances hazing constitutes a breach of the rules, and the future officers of our
navy must be taught, first of all and as a foundation for all other merits, strict
and unquestioning obedience. But to punish these faults of youth by depriv-
ing the young man concerned of his career in life is to commit a glaring
injustice. Moreover, it frequently defeats the object of the law itself by
causing the offender’s fault to be forgotten in the sympathy felt for his
misfortune, so that it becomes hard to get a conviction, and when one is
obtained, the pressure is very great on Congress to pass a law restoring the
offender. In addition, this disproportionate punishment of what may be a

143

trivial offense may result in depriving the Government of a promising officer
on whose education it has already expended several thousands of dollars. I
do not mean that dismissal is too severe a penalty for any form of hazing; on
the contrary, when hazing is a mere pretext for brutality and involves cruel
and ignominious treatment of the less experienced, and therefore more help-
less, midshipman, I should be glad to see it punished even more severely. But
it seems clear to me that to impose dismissal as the one invariable penalty for
the offense, without any regard to the attendant circumstances, is altogether
indefensible. In the case of Midshipman Miller, the Navy Department in
recommending his pardon expressed the opinion that he ought to be punished,
but that to punish him with dismissal would be a greater injustice, under the
circumstances of his case, than to let him go unpunished altogether. I share
this opinion, and it has dictated my course in this instance.

I think further that it is an error to try midshipmen accused of hazmg by
court-martial. There should be a discretionary power lodged in some ad-
ministrative officer or body to deal summarily with such offenses. In none of
our colleges or universities is it considered necessary that a student whose
conduct is unsatisfactory, and who is believed to be an injury to other stu-
dents, should be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by judicial tribunal
of an offense stated and established with technical accuracy, before he can be
separated from the institution. Such a requirement would be disastrous to the
good order and discipline of a college or university, and there is even greater
likelihood of its producing these unfortunate results at our Academy.
Whether this discretionary authority should be entrusted to the Secretary of
the Navy or to the Superintendent, subject to the Secretary’s approval, or to
the Academic Council with the like proviso, is of altogether subordinate
importance. What seems to me of real moment and no less real urgency is
that it should be lodged somewhere, and that the present cumbrous, uncer-
tain, and otherwise highly objectionable method of enforcing the law against
this particular offense should be done away with. I see no objection, however,
to the Department’s being allowed, in its discretion, to try midshipmen at
the Academy by court-martial for hazing or other offenses, if by reason of
peculiar circumstances the Secretary of the Navy should think this course
proper to attain the ends of justice.

I have written to you thus fully and frankly because I learn that there is
under consideration by your Committee a bill, or perhaps several bills, in-
tended to remedy the present very unsatisfactory condition of the law I
express no opinion as to any matters of detail connected with this suggested
legislation, but I would see with much regret the present session of Congress
end without some remedy being found for a situation full of embarrassment
for the Navy Department and of danger for the best interests of the Navy . 1
Very truly yours

1 The control of hazing at Annapolis had been of continuing concern to the President

and to the Navy Department. Both agreed that the existing system should be modified

144

3806 * TO GEORGE VON LENGERKE MEYER RoOSevdt MSS .

Confidential Washington, February 1, 1906

Dear George : Thanks for your interesting letters. 1 You always give me infor-
mation that is valuable. I do not know that I can do anything if the circum-
stances become strained at Algeciras, and of course I want to keep out of it
if I possibly can. Apparently the revolutionary movement has spent its force
m Russia, so far as any present crisis is concerned. What an extraordinary
country it is 1

I am having my own difficulties here. But then, as McKinley once said to
Root, “Government is always a crisis.” The House is a body capable of taking
positive action because the majority has control of the situation, and the
majority, on the whole, stands by the responsible leaders so that it is possible
to come to a definite agreement, and with Speaker Cannon I have found my-
self during the last four years able to get on very well. The Senate is a much
less coherent body, and while sometimes this has its advantages, the disad-
vantages happen to be markedly in evidence during the present session.
Cabot has been doing great work and I hope we will come out all right yet
Always yours

3807 * TO BELLAMY STORER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 3, 1906

My dear Bellamy: On December nth last, nearly two months ago, I wrote
you a letter enclosing one for Mrs. Storer. Both letters called for answers I
should like to have these answers as early as is convenient. Sincerely yours

3808 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 3, 1906

Dear Kerrnif I agree pretty well with your views of David Copper field.
Dora was very cunning and attractive, but I am not sure that the husband
would retain enough respect for her to make life quite what it ought to be

to permit moderate punishments for minor infractions of the hazing rule A bill intro-
duced into Congress by Senator Perkins on January 30, 1906, altered the existing law
by repealing the provision for compulsory court-martial and dismissal in hazing cases
Although the bill provided that the superintendent of the academy could mstigate
court-martial proceedmgs for serious offenses, it gave the Secretary of the Navy dis-
cretionary power to review cases and dismiss or retain midshipmen

While the Perkins Bill was pending, a House subcommittee, headed by Repre-
sentative Vreeland, was appointed to investigate conditions at Annapolis. The com-
mittee’s report endorsed the bill, which passed and was approved by the President on
April 9, 1906. Hazing at Annapolis continues

1 Meyer had written Roosevelt of the nervousness of the French Embassy in St.
Petersburg over the probable demands of the German Emperor at the Morocco
Conference. See Howe, Meyer, pp. 246-247.

*45

■with her. This is a harsh criticism and I have known plenty of women of the
Dora type whom I have felt were a good deal better than the men they
married, and I have seen them sometimes make very happy homes. I also feel
as you do that if a man had to struggle on and make his way it would be a
great deal better to have someone like Sophie. Do you recollect that dinner
at which David Copperfield and Traddles were, where they are described as
seated at the dinner, one “in the glare of the red velvet lady” and the other
“in the gloom of Hamlet’s aunt 5 ” I am so glad you like Thackeray. Pendennis
and The Newcomes and Vanity Fair I can read over and over again.

Ted blew in today. I think he has been studying pretty well this term and
now he is through all his examinations but one. He hopes, and I do, that you
will pay what attention you can to athletics. Play hockey for instance, and
try to get into shape for the mile run. I know it is too short a distance for
you, but if you will try for the hare and hounds running and the mile too,
you may be able to try for the two miles when you go to Harvard.

The weather was very mild early in the week. It has turned cold now,
but Mother and I had a good ride yesterday, and Ted and I a good ride
this afternoon, Ted on Grey Dawn. We have been having a perfect whirl of
dinner engagements; but .thank heavens they will stop shortly after Sister’s
wedding. Your loving father

3809 ‘ TO FRANCIS ELLINGTON LEUPP Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 6, 1906

My dear Leupp: Your letter about ex-Governor McConnell 1 is entirely
satisfactory. Incidentally, I wish it could be read by many people, like my
good friend Mr. Steffens and others, who make all kinds of charges of cor-
ruption on insufficient basis, or because circumstances look suspicious, when
in reality the explanation for their attack lies in their utter lack of familiarity
with the actual conditions. Faithfully yours

3810 • TO JOSEPH LINCOLN STEFFENS Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 6, 1906

Dear Steffens: In attacking the men responsible for government at Washing-
ton, don’t you think it would be a good plan to take some obvious and
flagrantly inexcusable breach of duty m the present and the concrete 5 There

1 William John McConnell in 1863 walked from Oregon to Boise City, Idaho. For
years thereafter a commuter between those states and always a staunch Republican,
he prospered personally and politically, servmg as president of the Oregon Senate,
1882, United States Senator from Idaho, 1890-1891; and Governor of Idaho, 1892-
1896. When political misfortune overtook him, McKinley rescued him with an ap-
pointment, in 1897, as Indian inspector, an office he held until 1901. Like many other
McKinley men, McConnell then ceased to prosper until 1909, when Taft restored
his salary and prestige with an appointment as immigrant inspector.

146

has been no more striking betrayal of the people in Congress since I have
been President than the action just taken by the Democratic caucus in the
Senate about the Santo Domingo treaty. All honor is due to the two or three
Democratic Senators who have stood by their convictions and the interests
of the nation in this matter; and no condemnation can be too severe
for those who, under the lead of Messrs. Bacon, Bailey , 1 Tillman and Com-
pany, without a particle of conviction, but in a spirit of the narrowest fac-
tional partisanship, and with not merely a willingness but an eagerness to
sacrifice the interests of the public to the favored interests of a faction, have
voted to reject the treaty. There are in the Senate, perhaps half a dozen, but
probably only two or three, doctrinaires, who on academic lines are sin-
cerely doubtful about the treaty; that is, there is about the same proportion
of off oxen as you would find in any average body of men on any subject.
But the treaty is so obviously in the interest of the United States, in the
interest of Santo Domingo, and in the interest of the entire civilized world
that no substantial opposition could by any possibility have been aroused
save on purely factional grounds. It illustrates what I have so often insisted
upon, namely, that in Congress there is more harm to be apprehended from
the narrow, rancorous partisan, from the uncouth, unlicked demagogue, and
from the mere puzzle-minded obstructionist, than from the man who is im-
properly sensitive to the influence of great corporations. The latter exists,
too, and I have had to fight him, but I have had more often to fight the three
former.

There is, for instance, much less chance for honest difference of opinion
about the Santo Domingo treaty than there is for honest difference of
opinion about the rate bill. I think the rate bill much more important and I
am much more desirous of getting it through; but I also thank that there is a
much greater chance of honest opposition to it than there is of honest opposi-
tion to the Santo Domingo treaty. Of course there are honest people of per-
verse natures or fantastic minds, or men who pride themselves on their eccen-
tricities, who will go against both, just as Littlefield and McCall, who are
entirely honest although not generally useful, have been opposing the rate
bill m the House. But on the rate bill I think that more men will vote for it
who conscientiously disbelieve in it than there are men who will vote against
it conscientiously believing m it. In other words, more men will vote under
the pressure of what they regard as an unwise popular belief than there are
men who will vote under pressure of the big corporate interests who are
opposed to it. This of course does not in the least alter the righteousness of
the bill; but it does give us a standard which we ought to apply to the Santo
Domingo treaty people as well.

In stating your disapproval of my efforts to get results, which of course
must be gotten by trying to come to a working agreement with the Senate

‘Joseph Weldon Bailey, Democratic congressman from Texas, 1891-1901, senator,

1901-1913, a man of intense feeling, many words, and no original ideas.

and House and therefore by making mutual concessions, you have often
said or implied that I ought to refuse to make any concessions, but stand out
uncompromisingly for my beliefs, and let the people decide. As a matter of
fact I have come a great deal nearer getting what I wanted than, for instance,
Governor La Follette in Wisconsin came to getting what he wanted in the
matter of legislation and appointments. But in addition, you will find by
looking at the past or the present that the people do not and cannot always
come to the rescue in such cases. The mere fact that there are at least half
a dozen important measures before Congress upon which the Senators and
Congressmen will vote every which way, would prevent it; for the standard
of judgment would vary as each measure was considered. In the next place
the people are always entirely capable of giving their hearty approval to
two opposite policies or to two men who represent diametrically opposite
policies. Have you forgotten how Pennsylvania voted for Andrew Jackson
when he ran on the platform of destruction to the bank, and at the same time
voted to sustain the bank 11 So Maine stood heartily behind President McKin-
ley as regards the Spanish war and the treaty of peace, and at the same time
stood with equal heartiness behind Senator Hale, who was against the Spanish
war and against the treaty of peace. So it is now. In Mr. Littlefield’s district
the people will stand heartily behind me in favor of the rate bill, and heartily
behind Mr. Littlefield, who is against the rate bill. Sincerely yours

3811 • TO PHILANDER CHASE KNOX Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 7, 1906

Dear Senator Knox: I need not tell you that there is no use in providing new
field artillery or heavy guns for the coast defenses unless our men can
handle them. I hope you will not find it necessary to cut down on the
Secretary of War’s estimates for practice with the coast and field artillery.
I believe that he himself cut down just as far as it was possible. 1

I do hope you will consult (and advise!) Dolliver and Clapp 2 about the
rate bill as soon as possible Faithfully yours

3812 • TO FRANCIS JOSEPH HENEY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 8, 1906

My dear Mr. Heney: Mr. « 01 der», of San Francisco, has handed me the
enclosed. He tells me that some of our Federal officials have been engaged in

1 In his annual message of 1905, and again m 1906, Roosevelt emphasized the need
for an increased number of men trained for the coast and field artillery.

2 Moses Edwin Clapp, Republican senator from Minnesota, 1901-1917, a pleasant,
competent man whose occasional mild impulses for reform have appeared to some
historians as indications of a great liberal spirit. He was at the time working with
Dolliver and the Democrats to have an unamended Hepburn Bill reported out of
the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce.

148

corrupt practices of the kind therein mentioned and that you have been mak-
ing an investigation of the matter. 1 Is there anything I should do in connec-
tion therewith? Sincerely yours

3813 ' TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE RoOSSVelt MSS.

Washington, February 10, 1906

To the Secretary of the Navy: I have read the report of the Joint Board on
the deficiency in the supply of ammunition should there be war. What steps
have been taken to bring this matter before Congress? I appreciate the disad-
vantage of failing to keep this report secret; but it seems to me that if Con-
gress does not give us the means to acquire the necessary reserve we ought to
make it public, as the disadvantages of so doing will be outweighed by the
need of waking up the country to what is necessary. I have sent a similar
letter to the Secretary of War. 1

3814 * TO JOHN ST. LOE STRACHEY Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, February 12, 1906

My dear Mr. Strachey: Many thanks for your very interesting letter. In spite
of your personal feelings I very much hope that you are re-elected to
Parliament. I suppose I shall not hear until we receive the English papers.

It is good of you to remember the engagement of my daughter, who will
be married this week. Longworth is a good fellow. He is a Harvard man, like
myself, was on the varsity crew, was a member of my club, the Porcellian,
and was and is much the best violinist who ever left Harvard. It is a delight
to hear him play. He has worked his way along in politics and has shown
that he has good stuff in him. I hope he can continue, and I believe that my
daughter will be of some assistance to him for she gets along well with politi-
cians, is interested in public matters, and showed to real advantage under
trying conditions when she visited the Philippines, Japan and China this
summer with the so-called “Taft party” of Senators, Congressmen, their
wives, and outsiders of various kinds. But whether Longworth will be able
to go on m politics, neither I nor anyone else can say. Although I have been
pretty steady in politics since I left college, I have always steadfastly refused

1 Heney had gone to Plumas and Butte counties to investigate timber frauds which
were even more extensive than those he had successfully prosecuted in Oregon.

1 In a letter to Congress on March 5, the President requested appropriations for in-
creased supplies of ammunition, particularly for coast defenses Roosevelt was also
concerned over the deficiency of smokeless powder (see Roosevelt to Bonaparte,
February 16, 1906, Roosevelt Mss.). This deficiency was caused, m part, by the fact
that obsolete, brown prismatic powder already stored in naval magazines had pre-
vented the stock-piling of smokeless powder. To overcome this difficulty, the Navy
adroitly, m 1906, transferred 850,000 of its 3,000,000 pounds of the obsolete powder
to the Army.

149

to regard politics as a career, for save under exceptional circumstances I do
not believe that any American can afford to try to make this his definite
career in life. With us politics are of a distinctly kaleidoscopic nature. No-
body can tell when he will be upset; and if a man is to be of real use he ought
to be able at times philosophically to accept defeat and to go on about some
other kind of useful work, either perrilanently or at least temporarily until
the chances again permit him to turn to political affairs. Every office I have
held I have quite smcerely believed would be the last I should hold, the only
exception being that during my first term as President I gradually grew to
think it probable that I should be re-elected.

I do sincerely wish that we could get for our Embassy that magnificent
Dorchester House. Longworth, by the way, has been making a good struggle
in Congress to secure adequate houses for our Ambassadors. He will fail, but
he will blaze the way for what will have to be ultimately done.

What you say about the Senate is entirely true. It is a very powerful
body with an illustrious history, and life is easy in it, the Senators not being
harassed as are members of the Lower House, who go through one campaign
for their seats only to begin another. The esprit de corps in the Senate is
strong, and the traditions they inherit come from the day when, in the first
place, men dueled and were more considerate of one another’s feelings, even
in doing business; and when, in the second place, the theories of all doctrinaire
statesmen were that the one thing that was needed in government was a
system of checks, and that the whole danger to government came not from
inefficiency but from tyranny. In consequence, the Senate has an immense
capacity for resistance. There is no closure, and if a small body of men are
sufficiently resolute they can prevent the passage of any measure until they
are physically wearied out by debate. The Senators get to know one another
intimately and tend all to stand together if they think any one of them is
treated with discourtesy by the Executive. In a treaty we have to have a
two-thirds vote, and as the opposite party in recent years has always had over
a third, this exposes us to the danger of having a factious opposition — and
most oppositions tend to grow factious — beat any treaty of importance.
Moreover the Senate not unnaturally likes to take all the governmental part
that it can, and now and then is stirred by vague ambitions to do its share in
initiating foreign policy. In short, it has, as I suppose such a body must gen-
erally have, a certain tendency to try to shape the development of the Gov-
ernment along lines which would result in a kind of scheme like that of the
States-General in Holland, which was so incompetent that it has always been
a marvel to me that Holland was able to accomplish anything at all. But at
the same time I do not at all feel that most of the talk we hear as to the en-
croachments of the Senate is sound. I do not see that the Senate is any
stronger relatively to the rest of the Government than it was sixty or seventy
years ago. Nor do I think that the Senate and the Lower House taken to-
gether are any stronger with reference to the President than they were a

century ago. Some of the things the Senate does really work to increase the
power of the Executive. They are able so effectually to hold up action when
they are consulted, and are so slow about it, that they force a President who
has any strength to such individual action as I took in both Panama and Santo
Domingo. In neither case would a President a hundred years ago have ven-
tured to act without previous absent by the Senate. But though in each case
I should have had the hearty support of the best men in the Senate, including
an enormous majority of my own party, yet the opposition, from inertness,
timidity, from the spirit of mere academic doctrinaire opposition, and from
ignorant and ferocious partisanship, had produced a condition which ren-
dered it in my opinion necessary to try a course of some little hazard. In this
nation, as in any nation which amounts to anything, those in the end must
govern who are willing actually to do the work of governing; and in so far
as the Senate becomes a merely obstructionist body it will run the risk of
seeing its power pass into other hands.

Let me say at the same time, however, that the Senate has many admirable
parts. There are few positions better worth filling than that of Senator; only
it should be filled as, for instance, the late Senator Platt of Connecticut filled
it. Men like Lodge and many others I could mention spend their time work-
ing as hard as they know how for the public good. The extreme conservatism
of the Senate has very distinct uses in as purely democratic a country as ours.
There are Senators who are too much under the influence of the big corpo-
rations, just as there are other Senators who are too much influenced by
craven demagogic fear of the mob; yet the average Senator sincerely desires
to do his best for the country and is usually a man of good ability and with
good training in pubhc affairs. In domestic politics Congress in the long run
is apt to do what is right. It is in foreign politics and in preparing the army
and navy that we are apt to have most difficulty, because these are just the
subjects as to which the average American citizen does not take the trouble
to think carefully or deeply.

I was particularly interested in what you said about your own politics.
Of course I can only speak to you in the strictest confidence, and I may be
guilty of indiscretion even thus. But I quite agree with you about Mr. Bal-
four. I thought that on free trade and protection he was trying to ride two
horses . 1 I have seen many politicians here at home sufficiently dextrous to
succeed, at any rate for a considerable time, under such circumstances; but
I have rarely seen such success tell for the good of the country; and Mr.
Balfour’s great qualities do not prevent me from agreeing with what you say
when you express the hope that democracy will always exact a heavy pen-
alty from the statesman who will not speak out and give a clear lead. I have
the heartiest sympathy with the Duke of Argyll’s fondness for the leader who

1 Arthur James Balfour had recently resigned as Prime Minister in large part because

of his inability to decide what his protective policy would be His indecision was re-
flected by the division with his own party.

means what he says and moreover means that what he says shall be under-
stood. As for protection and free trade, I am confident that protection would
be most damaging to Great Britain. As regards the United States, I think I
once told you that I am on this point rather an economic agnostic. We have
certainly prospered under protection, and I have seen the prophecies of the
free traders so utterly fail of fulfillment during the last thirty years that I
am inclined to treat the matter as one of expediency purely.

I again agree with you about the labor members, and I am glad to see so
strong a representation of the laboring classes. I confess to a feeling of envy
that it is in England that we first see a labor man a member of the Cabinet.
I would give much to have a labor man in my Cabinet. But it would be worse
than useless to put one in who was not fit for the job, and there isn’t any
labor man here who stands m any way as John Burns stands with you . 2 I
have in my Cabinet, and I have in the highest positions in the Diplomatic
service and in many other positions, men who were at one time laboring men,
who toiled with their hands for wages, but they have all long passed that
stage. All that I mind about seeing so many labor members in Parliament is
that I do not like to see any party based on class distinctions. I want the
Representative to be not the Representative of a class but of all classes. I do
not want him to be primarily a labor man any more than I want him to be
primarily a capitalist or a lawyer or a merchant.

I am also interested in what you say of Edward Grey ; 8 and somehow
when you say that he is a Radical Whig you make me feel as if I could get
on with him'

We earnestly hope that you will both be over here next year. Sincerely
yours

P.S. I think you just hit the nail about the Senate when you speak of the
apparent want of sense of responsibility among its members in spite of their
vast powers. The trouble is of course that it is hardly possible to bring home
to any one Senator the responsibility for an action, or more often for inac-
tion, by the body as a whole. Moreover, there is profound truth m what you
say that while public opinion may be relied upon to keep the Senate straight
in great things, unfortunately in a complicated state machine there are in-
numerable apparently small things which are really of vast importance but
which public opinion will not classify as great things. This is exactly the
case. For instance, I shall get rate legislation of some kind this winter because
the public mind is aroused on the subject. Any deficiencies in the rate bill
will be due to the fact that in the public mind there is confusion; and as so
often happens, the extreme and impracticable radicals may join with the im-
properly extreme conservatives in preventing rational progress. But on the
Santo Domingo treaty no great public excitement can be aroused. The public
does not appreciate the ultimate importance of the treaty, and won’t take the

* John Bums was then president of the Local Government Board

* Edward Grey at this time was Foreign Secretary.

152

trouble to understand very clearly what is up. In consequence, the Senators
are left without much public pressure upon them and the Democrats are at
liberty to, as they suppose, score a point by objecting.

3815 • TO ALEXANDER LAMBERT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 13, 1906

Dear Alex: I cannot write to Wadsworth and Higgins about any matter of
legislation, even the most important. If I did it in one case I should have to
do it in many others. I am very sorry. Faithfully yours

3816 * TO NEVADA NORTHROP STRANAHAN Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 14, 1906

Dear Stranahan: The more I have thought over the Governor’s suggestion
about Colonel Mott the more convinced I am that it is the right thing to do. 1
Indeed, it looks to me as if it was the only thing to do. I would gladly accept
any one of several men* Dwight, Barnes, and so forth; but no one of them
will be accepted by enough people to make it possible to put them in. There
is bitter opposition to both of the men I have mentioned above, to Tim
Woodruff, and, m short, to everyone whose name has been brought forward.
Now, let there be no shilly-shallying. Have Mott put up. I did not think of
him. He was not suggested by me. I shall be glad to do everything I can to
back him up and get people to back him. As I have never thought of him
I am more at liberty to say that I think he is the one man who has been sug-
gested that completely fills the situation. He has the highest character and
integrity. He possesses an honorable and active record as a politician, and is
in no shape or way identified with factions. But let the Governor start to
work instantly. I do not mean next week. I mean as soon as you can get word
to him by telephone. Let it be handled just as the Wadsworth campaign was.
As you know, I never thought of Wadsworth for Speaker any more than I
thought of Mott for the State Chairmanship. I never dreamed of dictating
the name of either man for the place. The Governor suggested Mott, and
now I hope he will put Mott through and get Aldridge and O’Brien active.
Please see Ward yourself and simply let me know what you want done Can’t
you see Colonel Dunn and tell him what I have written you^ I shall see
Dwight myself. Faithfully yoim

1 Higgins had suggested John T. Mott, Oswego banker and Republican state com-
mitteeman, for state chairman in place of B B Odell who, after his defeats in New
York County and the Assembly caucus, seemed vulnerable to further attack Other
friends of Roosevelt m New York favored Congressmen John W. Dwight or Edward
B Vreeland for the post, while Platt supported Woodruff. Worried by this division
of sentiment which could not be overcome quickly, and, perhaps, by the substantial
remnant of Odell’s power, Higgins delayed his plan to unseat Odell until the fall
campaign With this delay Roosevelt was impatient and unsympathetic.

153

[Handwritten] Of course it is highly unwise to use my name in any way
in connection with the announcement of the matter; later I will back up
Mott with all my -vigor. Would’n’t it be well to get a majority of the mem-
bers of the Committee pledged in writing before the matter is published 5
But have it set about at once.

3817 • to elxhu root Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 14, 1906

The Secretary of State: I enclose herewith a petition for the negotiation of
a treaty for the preservation of Niagara Falls. I of course am not able to say
offhand whether a treaty would be the right way to go about it, but I under-
stand that you already have under way negotiations with the British Govern-
ment on this subject. In the petition I noticed that Sir Wilfrid Laurier says
that he has not been approached in the matter. I earnestly desire that action
be pressed as rapidly as possible. There is no more worthy object before the
people at this time. 1

3818 • TO JOHN ALBERT TIFFIN HULL Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 16, 1906

My dear Mr. Hull: I understood from our conversation the other day that
you had not had laid before you the proposition of the War Department for
money to permit the long exercise marches and gathering into camps of in-
struction of the regular army this fall. The War Department tell me that Gen-
eral Oliver did lay the plan before your Committee, but that it was rejected
upon the ground that the House would not consider it and would only con-
sider the camps of instruction for the militia. I think it very important that
the $700,000 appropriated for the militia should be kept because it will be of
great use in maneuvering the militia; but it is ten times as important to ma-
neuver the regulars, and if you can only appropriate that $700,000 I would
cut out the militia and appropriate it for use in training the regulars in serv-
ice marches, gathering them in camps of instruction, and giving at least a
brigade, and I should hope a division, experience in being embarked, at some
point on the coast where there is no port, on board transports, and disem-
barked at some other point on the coast where there is no port. It is abso-
lutely essential to the effectiveness of the army that all this kind of work
should be done. 1

1 In May 1904, Hay had opened negotiations with Great Britain for a treaty to pre-
serve Niagara Falls An International Waterways Commission was set up in Novem-
ber 1905 to regulate equitable division of water power between the United States and
Canada and to protect the aesthetic value of the falls Congress, in June 1906, passed
a bill authorizing the Secretary of War to control water power diversion for the
United States and to supervise the preseivation of the falls.

1 See No 3788.

1 54

The Secretary of War is very anxious that the lieutenant generalship be
not abolished until after January ist next, so that the veterans of the Civil
War can take advantage of it. Personally I should heartily welcome your
plan of having the chief of staff receive the grade of lieutenant general while
so serving, although only on condition that he should serve no longer than
the President desired him to serve as chief of staff. I should do this with the
understanding that it was a detail only, and that it was to be filled absolutely
without reference to seniority from among the major and brigadier generals.
I understand that the War Department does not approve of this change of
which I speak, and of course before making it I should hope that Secretary
Taft would be consulted at length, and possibly Secretary Root, under whom
the present system was inaugurated. I think we are all agreed that the present
system is nonsensical, for the lieutenant general may not be the man desired
as chief of staff, and in such case it is an absurdity having him occupy a
minor position somewhere outside. I personally feel very strongly that the
chief of staff, who should hold office only at the pleasure of the President,
should have a rank higher than that of any other general officer while he is
thus holdmg it. Secretary Taft feels very strongly the other way, and I am
informed that Secretary Root does, but I do not know this. 2 Sincerely yours
P.S. Of course if you abolish the lieutenant generalship I take it for
granted that you will provide for one more major general, so that the total
number of generals above the grade of brigadier general will not be dimin-
ished.

3819 * TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 17, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I forgot to bring up one thing with you and Admiral
Sands 1 yesterday. I am not satisfied about the giving up of the judo or jujitsu
at the Naval Academy. It is not physical exercise so much as it is an extraor-
dinarily successful means of self-defense and training in dexterity and deci-
sion. Naturally, elderly men of a routine habit of mind who have known
nothing whatever of it are against it; but I know enough of boxing, wrestling,
rough-and-tumble fighting, and of the very art in question to be absolutely
certain that it is of real and on occasions may be of great use to any man
whose duties are such as a naval officer’s may at any time become. I should
like to have it continued next year at the Naval Academy. 2
With great regard, Sincerely yours

2 This letter was also sent to Francis E. Warren, chairman of the Senate Committee
on Military Affairs.

1 James Hoban Sands, Rear Admiral, United States Navy, superintendent of the Naval
Academy.

‘Bonaparte, in a memorandum of March 3, 1906, to the Bureau of Navigation, or-
dered judo to be continued at Annapolis.

155

3820 • to julius h. mayer Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, February 17, 1906

My dear Mr. Attorney General: What did you decide about the quo war-
ranto proceedings to determine who was really elected Mayor of New York^
I should not have ventured any advice on the subject had I not felt so
strongly, as I still feel, that we should use every means in our power to make
it evident that we will not tolerate either fraud or corruption in elections any
more than we would tolerate violence in elections. I need hardly tell you
what I feel about Hearst and about the papers and magazines he controls and
their influence for evil upon the public and social life of this country, but
this has nothing to do with the fact that if he was entitled to the seat he
should have it. The point is not the worthiness of the candidate, but whether
or not he was elected.

If I had any power to act through the Federal District Attorney I should
of course do so, but as I have no power all I can do, my dear Mr. Attorney
General, is to beg you carefully to consider the matter. 1

With great regard, Since? ely yours

P.S. Of course if the legislature provides for a recount I suppose that that
will be as good as your acting. But it has seemed to me that the safest prece-
dent would be to have your department take action.

3821 * TO ALFRED HENRY LEWIS Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 17, 1906

My dear Lewis: 1 Don’t you want to come down here some time when I can
have an hour’s talk with you? I have just been reading the Cosmopolitan .
There is no need for me to say that so far as m one article or another corrup-
tion and fraud are attacked, the attack has my heartiest sympathy and com-
mendation, but hysteria and sensationalism never do any permanent good,

1 McClellan’s narrow victory over Hearst in the New York City mayoralty election
had become a subject of intense political dispute. On the day of the election Hearst
had taken an early lead. After a “strange interruption” m the announcement of re-
turns, this lead melted away. Familiar with Tammany’s classic devices for controlling
political phenomena, Hearst’s supporters and many Republicans accused Tammany of
fraud and demanded a recount which McClellan and Murphy vigorously opposed
Throughout 1906 both Hearst and interested Republicans tried, without success, to
persuade Attorney General Mayer or the Republican legislature to force a recount
Foiled m the attempt, Hearst sought other means of forcing the issue. In 1906 he
ran as the Democratic candidate for governor, and obtained for his political associate
John Ford the nommation for Attorney General. Ford won, while Hearst lost to
Hughes. The latter, when elected, obtained from the legislature a recount of the
mayoralty election of 1906. When this was declared unconstitutional, Ford began
quo warranto proceedings In 1908 the courts declared McClellan’s election legal.

1 Alfred Henry Lewis, at this time head of the Washington Bureau of the New York
Journal , was also a frequent contributor of articles of mild protest to the Cosmo-
politan.

156

and in addition I firmly believe that to the public, as well as to private indi-
viduals, the liar is in the long run as noxious as the thief. Now some of the
articles in the Cosmopolitan consist of nothing but a mixture of hysteria and
mendacity, and in others, in which there is a great deal of truth, there is so
much suppression of the truth, or assertion or implication of the false, and
so much sensationalism, that I do not think very much good will follow. 2 I
would like to give you my point of view on several things, not in the least
because I have any personal interest, for such is not the fact, but because I
believe that you are one of the men who mould public opinion and I want
to see you mould it right. Sincerely yours

3822 • TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MsS.

Washington, February 19, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker: Will you show this letter to Colonel Hepburn? I en-
close herewith copy of the draft of Moody’s proposed amendment to the
rate bill, this draft having been gone over by him and Messrs. Prouty and
Knapp 1 of the Interstate Commerce Commission in my presence, and being
satisfactory to all of us. It differs somewhat from Knox’s proposition, and
I of course cannot say whether Knox will be satisfied with it or not. But it
seems to us to about meet the situation.

(I am dictating this note in the presence of Mr. Moody and Mr. Knapp.
Mr. Prouty has been obliged to leave to catch a train, but before leaving ex-
pressed his entire accord with what I am about to say.)

We think that the Hepburn bill already gives the appeal provided for in
the proposed amendment; that is, that the proposed amendment does not in-
crease the appellate jurisdiction of the court, which the Hepburn bill recog-
nizes and which no legislation could deny. But there are sound constitutional
lawyers of great ability (Knox being one) who think that it is at least ques-
tionable whether the Hepburn bill does with sufficient explicitness confer
this right of appeal; and if their view is correct, it is advisable to see that the
conferring of the right is so explicit as to avoid raising the constitutional
question. Inasmuch, therefore, as the proposed amendment merely grants
what the Attorney General and Messrs. Knapp and Prouty, as well as I, feel
ought to be granted, and as it takes away the possibility of the bill being

2 Articles such as David Graham Phillips’ “Treason of the Senate” had already in-
spired Roosevelt on January 27 at the Gridiron Club dinner to his celebrated refer-
ence to the “Man with the Muck-rake” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 10, 1906)
This reference he repeated publicly on April 24 on the occasion of the laying of the
cornerstone of the House Office Building — American Problems, Nat. Ea. XVI,

415

1 Martin Augustine Knapp, a member since 1891, and chairman since 1898, of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, later presiding judge of the Commerce Court,
1910-1913, and United States circuit judge, 1913-1923. One of the most competent
transportation authorities in his day, Knapp, a frequent mediator under the Erdman
Act, was also an expert on labor law.

1 57

declared unconstitutional on the ground that the power is not conferred in
sufficiently explicit terms (even though we personally believe that the con-
ferring of the power is sufficiently explicit), it would seem that the amend-
ment can with wisdom be adopted.

After you and Hepburn have considered this matter, will you make an
appointment with me at as early a date as possible, by preference some time
Wednesday? I want to go over the matter with Senators Dolliver and Clapp
as soon as I can after I have talked with you. 2 Sincerely yours

3823 • TO WILLIAM ZEBINA RIPLEY Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 20, 1906

My dear Dr. Ripley: I thank you for your letter and the very interesting
pamphlet. The long and short haul proposition is a very difficult one to
tackle. I entirely agree with your desire to allow co-operative agreement be-
tween carriers. You probably saw what I recommended in my message; but
I do not think anything can be done with it at present. In its essence the
Hepburn bill is all right and I think we can get it through. Sincerely yours
[Handwritten] I have been greatly interested in all you have written on
the subject.

3824 ■ TO EDMUND HOWARD HINSHAW Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 20, 1906

My dear Mr. Hinshaw: 1 1 thank you for that clipping. To me, the prompt
application of the rate schedule directed by the commission is the vital fea-
ture of the bill. Of course no human ingenuity can devise a way by which
the right of the court to grant a stay can be abridged — at least it has proved
wholly impossible to devise any such plan by anyone during the past year.
But all the legislative body can do should be done, and I think is being done,
to secure the result desired, as expressed by the Lincoln State Journal.

There is one expression in the clipping, however, which looks as if the
State Journal did not understand the situation; that is, where it speaks of an
appeal to the court tying the matter up indefinitely. I notice that Senator
Aldrich keeps speaking about the need of such an appeal being provided for
in the bill; while on the other hand there are a number of people that speak

a Roosevelt sent a similar letter to Dolliver. After conferences with Hepburn, Cannon,
Clapp, Dolliver, Kean, Crane, and Moody on February 21, the President realized that
the differences of opinion between those like Knox who wanted broad review, and
those like Moody, who did not, were irreconcilable. Temporarily, therefore, he aban-
doned his efforts to compose an Administration amendment (Washington Post,
February 22, 1906; No. 3827). Knox, on the day after the conference, introduced his
own bill, which defined the position of the Senate conservatives; see Stephenson,
Aldrich, p. 294.

1 Edmund Howard Hinshaw, Republican congressman from Nebraska, 1903-191 1.

158

as if such an appeal ought not to be provided and as if the Hepburn bill did
not provide for it. As a matter of fact, all this talk on both sides is nonsense.
It is impossible to prevent such an appeal being taken, and the Hepburn bill
explicitly provides for it. If there were any serious question about its pro-
viding for it, it would undoubtedly be unconstitutional and void. The right
to an appeal on constitutional grounds cannot be taken away; and it is im-
possible for us to be sure whether any bill, the Hepburn bill or any other, will
prevent this right being under some circumstances abused. Sincerely yours

3825 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 21, 1906

The Secretary of the Navy : In the recent war in the East Admiral Togo took
his place among the great sea fighters of all time. His message to the United
Squadron which he commanded, on the occasion of its dispersal at the close
of the war, is so noteworthy that I deem it proper to have it inserted in a
general order of the Department.

The qualities which make a formidable fighting man, on sea or on shore,
and which therefore make a formidable army or navy, are the same for all
nations. The individual men must have the fighting edge; there must be in
them courage, determination, individual initiative, combined with willingness
to learn and subordination of self, together with physical address, m order
that they may form the stuff out of which in the aggregate good armies and
navies are made; but m addition to this there must be preparedness — there
must be thorough training in advance. Every American officer and enlisted
man, whether serving in the army or the navy, should keep ever before his
eyes the fact that he will not be fit thoroughly to do his work in the event
of war unless m peace he has thoroughly done the work of preparing for
war. If in peace the soldier and the sailor abandon themselves to ease and
sloth, when war comes they will go down before rivals who have been less
self-indulgent. Nor is it only the men of the army and the navy who should
constantly remember these facts. In a great self-governing republic like ours
the army and the navy can be only so good as the mass of the people wish
them to be. The citizens of our country owe it to themselves and to their
children and their children’s children that there shall be no chance of having
the national honor tarnished, the national flag stained with aught that is dis-
creditable. The men of the army and the navy, m any great crisis such as
even the most peaceful nation may at times have to face, will be those upon
whom the especial responsibility will rest of keeping the nation’s honor
bright and unsullied. They cannot do this if the nation does not exercise fore-
thought on their behalf. We must have an adequate navy and an adequate
army m point of size; they must be provided with the most effective mech-
anism in the form of weapons and other material; above all they must be
given every chance in time of peace to train themselves so that they may be

159

adepts in handling the mechanism, and be fitted m body and m mind un-
flinchingly to endure the tremendous strain and bear the tremendous respon-
sibility of war.

Omitting certain allusions having no bearing on our conditions, the ad-
dress runs as follows:

The war of twenty months’ duration is now a thing of the past, and our
United Squadron, having completed its functions, is to be herewith dispersed
But our duties as naval men are not at all lightened for that reason. To preserve
in perpetuity the fruits of this war, to promote to an ever greater height of
prosperity the fortunes of the country, the Navy, which, irrespective of peace or
war, has to stand between the Empire and shocks from abroad, must always
maintain its strength at sea and must be prepared to meet any emergency. This
strength does not consist solely m ships and armament; it consists also in im-
material ability to utilize such agents. When we understand that one gun which
scores a hundred per cent of hits is a match for a hundred of the enemy’s guns
each of which scores only one per cent, it becomes evident that we sailors must
have recourse before everything to the strength which is over and above externals.
The triumphs recently won by our Navy are largely to be attributed to the
habitual training which enabled us to garner the fruits of the fighting. If then we
infer the future from the past, we recognize that though war may cease we can-
not abandon ourselves to ease and rest. A soldier’s whole life is one continuous
and unceasing battle, and there is no reason why his responsibilities should vary
with the state of the times. In days of crisis he has to display his strength; in days
of peace to accumulate it, thus perpetually and uniquely discharging his duties
to the full. It was no light task that during the past year and a half we fought
with wind and waves, encountered heat and cold, and kept the sea while frequently
engaging a stubborn enemy in a death-or-life struggle; yet, when we reflect, this
is seen to have been only one in a long series of general maneuvers, wherein we
had the happiness to make some discoveries; happiness which throws into com-
parative insignificance the hardships of war. If men calling themselves sailors grasp
at the pleasures of peace, they will learn the lesson that however fine in appearance
their engmes of war, these, like a house built on the sand, will fail at the first
approach of the storm. From the day when in ancient times we conquered Korea,
that country remained for over 400 years under our control, only to be lost
immediately so soon as our navy declined. Again when under the sway of the
Tokugawa in modern days our armaments were neglected, the coming of a few
American ships threw us into distress, and we were unable to offer any resistance
to attempts against the Kuriles and Sakhalin. On the other hand, if we turn to
the annals of the Occident, we see that at the beginning of the 19th century the
British Navy which won the battles of the Nile and of Trafalgar, not only made
England as secure as a great mountain but also by thenceforth carefully maintain-
ing its strength and keeping it on a level with the world’s progress, has throughout
the long interval between that era and the present day safeguarded the country’s
interests and promoted its fortunes. For such lessons, whether ancient or modern,
Occidental or Oriental, though to some extent they are the outcome of political
happenings, must be regarded as in the main the natural result of whether the
soldier remembers war in the day of peace. We naval men who have survived
the war must take these examples deeply to heart, and adding to the training
which we have already received our actual experiences m the war, must plan
future developments and seek not to fall behind the progress of the time If, keep-

160

mg the instructions of our Sovereign ever graven on our hearts, we serve earnestly
and diligently, and putting forth our full strength, await what the hour may
bring forth, we shall then have discharged our great duty of perpetually guar din g
our country. Heaven gives the crown of victory to those only who by habitual
preparation win without fighting, and at the same time forthwith deprives of that
crown those who, content with one success, give themselves up to the ease of
peace. The ancients well said- “Tighten your helmet strings in the hour of
victory.”

(Dated) 21st December, 1905.

Togo Heihachiro.

I commend the above address to every man who is or may be a part of
the fighting force of the United States, and to every man who believes that,
if ever, unhappily, war should come, it should be so conducted as to reflect
credit upon the American nation.

3826 * to john Ireland Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 21, 1906

My dear Archbishop: I have your letter of the 19th instant. If Mrs. Storer
has written you it is more than either she or Bellamy has done as far as I am
concerned. Nearly two months and a half have gone by since I wrote them
both, and neither of them has so far answered me. If it were not for my old
personal relations I would have removed Storer before this time, and unless
Mrs. Storer’s letter is absolutely satisfactory, as well as her conduct hereafter
in view of such letter, I shall be obliged to remove him anyhow. I need not
point out to you that it is literally unpardonable for them under these cir-
cumstances to have left my letters so long unanswered and to allow my first
knowledge of their having been received to come through a third party, even
a third party to whom I am attached as much as I am to you. Storer is an
ambassador m the service of the United States, and when the President writes
to him it is not merely a matter of courteous obligation, it is a matter of
duty, that he should answer forthwith; and, moreover, that he and Mrs.
Storer should answer the President before they write to anyone else on the
subject. Under the circumstances, my dear Archbishop, I am sure you will
understand that I could not possibly permit Storer to go as Special Ambassa-
dor to Madrid. We may not send anyone, but if we do it will be someone
else. I will add that since I saw you and since I wrote to the Storers infor-
mation has come to me showing even graver indiscretions on the part of
Mrs. Storer than I was then aware of — indiscretions of several distinct kinds;
and I am very doubtful w r hether, even if I had not decided adversely on other
grounds, it would do to send her to the Court of Spain any more than to
Paris.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

161

3827 * TO ALEXANDER JOHNSON CASSATT Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, February 22, 1906

My dear Mr . Cassatt: Moody and I and the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sioners agreed upon an amendment which I thought met exactly the points
raised in your letter. Senator Knox, however, who appears to be in this
matter the spokesman of those who call themselves the conservative people
in the Senate, declined to agree to the amendment, stating that he preferred
the Hepburn bill as it was. Having in view this declination it proved impos-
sible to get either side to consider the amendment and I gave up the effort.
Personally, I think that the Hepburn bill m substantially its present form
does provide for the review and is all right, and as the amendment did
not meet with favor on either side my present inclination is to believe
that we should pass the Hepburn bill essentially as it now is. Possibly you
remember my speech at the Iroquois Club last May in which I spoke as fol-
lows:

I believe that the representatives of the Nation — that is, the representatives
of all the people — should lodge in some executive body the power to establish
a maximum rate, the power to have that rate go into effect practically immedi-
ately, and the power to see that the provisions of the law apply in full to companies
owning private cars and private tracks, just as much as the railroads themselves.
The courts will retain, and should retain, no matter what the Legislature does,
the power to interfere and upset any action that is confiscatory m its nature.
I am well aware that the action of such a body as I have spoken of may stop far
short of confiscation, and yet do great damage. In other words, I am well aware
that to give this power means the possibility that the power may be abused. That
possibility we must face. Any power strong enough, any power which could be
granted sufficiently great to be efficient, would be sufficiently great to be harmful
if abused.

This represents my present feeling.

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

3828 • TO VICTOR HOWARD METCALF Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 22, 1906

My dear Mr. Metcalf: I ask your particular attention to the enclosed, and I
would like a personal report made to me about it. I entirely agree with Sec-
retary Root that the time has come when it is necessary to dismiss some one
of these immigrant officials who take improper action, and this would seem
to be an inexcusable case. Moreover, I would like a report from Ellis Island
as to some scheme for improving the examination of the eyes of immigrants
to discover whether they have trachoma. When I was at Ellis Island myself
I was struck by the way m which the doctors made the examinations with

162

dirty hands and with no pretense to clean their instruments, so that it would
seem to me that these examinations as conducted would themselves be a
fruitful source of carrying infection from diseased to healthy people. 1 * * * Sin-
cerely yours

3829 • TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, February 23, 1906

My dear Dr . Abbott: Do you recall my speaking to you about the matter
alluded to in the enclosed letters 5 Somehow I gained the idea that you had
corrected the statement, but evidently I was mistaken. It happened to come
up through my speaking about it to Lodge, and he handed to me the enclosed.
You would be surprised to know how many men have spoken to me about
the article on Lodge. Lodge has violent enemies. But he is a boss or the head
of a machine only in the sense that Henry Clay and Webster were bosses
and heads of political machines; that is, it is a very great injustice to couple
his name with the names of those commonly called bosses, in any article. I
know Massachusetts politics well. I know Lodge’s share in them, and I know
what he has done in the Senate. He and I differ radically on certain proposi-
tions, as for instance on the pending rate bill and on the arbitration treaties
of a couple of years ago; but I say deliberately that during the twenty years
he has been in Washington he has been on the whole the best and most use-
ful servant of the public to be found in either house of Congress. I say also
that he has during that period led politics in Massachusetts in the very way
which, if it could only be adopted in all our States, would mean the elimina-
tion of graft, of bossism, and of every other of the evils which are most
serious in our politics. Lodge is a man of very strong convictions, and this
means that when his convictions differ from mine I am apt to substitute the
words “narrow” and “obstinate” for “strong”; and he has a certain aloofness
and coldness of manner that irritate people who don’t live in New England.
But he is an eminently fit successor of Webster and Sumner in the senator-
ship from Massachusetts. He is a bigger man than Sumner, but of course has
not dealt with any such crisis as Sumner dealt with. He is not as big a man
intellectually as Webster, but he is a far better man morally; and the type
of citizenship which he represents is from the standpoint of the United States
better than either of theirs.

Remember how much I want to see you whenever the chance comes.
Sincerely yours

1 In the 1906 report of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Metcalf urged Congress

to provide for immigration inspection and physical examinations at foreign ports.

This, he felt, would reduce the number of aliens arriving in the United States with

contagious diseases.

! 6 3

3830 - TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 23, 1906

Dear Ted: Yesterday the Dean wrote me that you had been placed on pro-
bation for an unsatisfactory report of studies, saying that your report for
the first half year was not such as would promote you to the Sophomore
class at the end of the year were these grades final. The Dean’s letter then
runs:

Probation means, as the enclosed copy of the regulations will show, serious
danger of separation from college, and unless Ted has a better record at the hour
examinations in April, he runs serious danger of having his probation closed at
that time. If on the other hand he has a satisfactory report both m studies and
attendance from this time forth, the Administration Board will be glad, I am sure,
to relieve him from probation at that time. * * # Ted came to see me yesterday
morning and seemed to be thoroughly impressed with the importance of turning
over a new leaf at once. He seemed nervous and excitable and I did what I could
to steady him down, telling him that he must not now go up in the air; that
although the situation was serious it was by no means hopeless

Mr. Castle 1 has also written me, speaking very kindly about you and
saying you were right about the themes, and added: “He is full of good
resolutions, which he will keep and which will bring him out with flying
colors at the end of the year.”

I quote these paragraphs to you in full so that you may know the thor-
oughly kindly spirit there is toward you, and appreciate the fact that you
can perfectly well retrieve yourself if you do not go up into the air on the
one hand, and if on the other hand you do not fail to realize the gravity of
the situation. There is not leeway for the smallest shortcoming on your part.
Under no circumstances and for no reason short of sickness which makes
you unable to leave your room, should you cut a lesson or a theme or fail to
study hard right along. If you cannot study at Claverly (and I bitterly regret
that I ever engaged you a room there) hire a quiet room m some boarding-
house outside of college and I will pay for it. I need not say to you to pay
no heed whatever to athletics, to social life, or to anything else that will in
the slightest degree interfere with your studies. It is of no use being popular
m the class if you are going to be dropped out of the class; and moreover,
this is evidently a time when, in addition to doing just as well as you know
how, you will have to impress the college authorities with the fact that you
are doing well, and thus efface the bad impression that you have made.

I know you have thought of all this and I have unlimited confidence in
your ability to pull yourself together, not to get depressed, not to be misled

1 William Richards Castle, Jr , son of the great Hawaiian entrepreneur and adminis-
trator At this time assistant dean of Harvard College, he later served as special
assistant. Chief of the Division of Western Europe Affairs and Assistant Secretary in
the State Department, He ended his diplomatic career as ambassador to Japan m
1930.

164

by the fools who will tell yon that probation is nothing, and to peg away as
hard as you know how at your work, being careful only not to work up to
the point where you break down. Your loving father

[. Handwritten ] Good luck, old boy! You’ll come out all right. I know
you have the stuff in you, and I trust you entirely. Any one might come a
cropper like this, now get up and retrieve it.

3831 - TO RALPH MONTGOMERY EASLEY, JEREMIAH "WHIPPLE

JENKS, AND JAMES BRONSON REYNOLDS Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, February 24, 1906

Gentlemen ; 1 In order that I may have full information regarding the work
of the Bureau of Immigration, especially as regards its influence m connec-
tion with the Chinese boycott of American goods, I hereby appoint you to
investigate the work of that Bureau.

To that end you are authorized, acting collectively or individually, to
call upon any employee of that Bureau or of the Government who you may
have reason to believe has information pertinent to your investigation to re-
port such information to you directly without consultation with his superior
officers, to exhibit to you and permit you to take copies of any documents
in his charge, and to assist you in your investigation in every way possible,
and I hereby direct such employees to give you information and to assist you
as above suggested You are authorized to state m my name to all employees
of the Government thus called upon that, so long as I am President, I will
protect them against any evil consequences to themselves from making truth-
ful disclosures regarding the work of the Bureau of Immigration, and that I
desire their hearty co-operation in your work. You are also instructed to
adopt such lawful measures as seem to you wise to obtain information perti-
nent to your investigation from immigrants and other persons not connected
with the Government.

You are instructed to keep in strictest confidence such information as
you may secure and to report to me from time to time the results of your
investigation. Very truly yours

Easley, a businessman, Jenks, an economist, and Reynolds, a social worker, ap-
proached the problem of immigration with preconceptions like those of Roosevelt
Easley, an organizer and the secretary of the Chicago Civic Federation, 1893-1900,
and chairman of the executive council of its successor, the National Civic Federation,
was m those capacities the tireless promoter of conferences on trusts, labor relations,
immigration and foreign policy In the first decade of the century he appeared to be
an intelligent conservative devoted to the solution of national problems through im-
partial conferences After 1914, in an interesting transformation of attitude shared
by many similar temperaments both in and out of politics, he became a leading figure
m successive efforts to prevent social and economic reforms by crusades designed to
frighten rather than inform.

165

3832 • TO FRANCIS LEBARON ROBBINS

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, February 24, 1906

Sir : 1 1 note with very great concern the failure m your late convention on
joint interstate agreement to come to a basis of settlement of the bituminous
mining scale of wages. You, in your business, have enjoyed great industrial
peace for many years, thanks to the joint trade agreement that has resulted
from the action of your successive conventions. A strike such as is threatened
on April 1 st is a menace to the peace, the business interests, and the general
welfare of the country. 2 I urge you to make a further effort to avert such
a calamity. You and Mr. Mitchell are joint chairmen of the trade agreement
committee of the National Civic Federation. It seems to me that this imposes
an additional duty upon you both, and gives an additional reason why each
of you should join in making this further effort. Very respectfully yours

1 Francis LeRaron Robbins, president of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, was at this
time chairman of the bituminous coal operators’ committee to deal with a threatened
miners’ strike. Robbins and John Mitchell had approved the draft of this letter of
February 24 which Roosevelt sent them both.

2 Since their national convention of January 15, the United Mine Workers had been
planning a strike, to take effect April i in both the anthracite and bituminous coal
fields unless the operators met their demands. The most important of these demands
were (a) recogmuon of the U.M.W. as the miners’ agency for collective bargain-
ing, (b) appointment of a new conciliation board, (c) compulsory withholding of
umon dues from workers’ pay by all companies, (d) an eight-hour day, and (e)
restoration of wage cuts made since 1903. At conventions which met simultaneously
in Minneapolis m early February the executive committees of the miners and opera-
tors failed to reach any agreement on these issues.

There was, however, some hope for a solution m the fact that the miners were
divided among themselves. Patrick Dolan, the miners’ chief m the important Pitts-
burgh area, District No 5, and U.M.W. vice-president, Thomas Lewis, who aspired
to succeed Mitchell, led a vocal minority of bituminous workers who did not want
to walk out for the sake of a wage difference which largely affected the anthracite
men or for the withholding system which many bituminous locals already had They
proposed that each local make its own terms. Recognizing that Dolan and Lewis
were dangerous rivals, Mitchell was anxious to protect his own position by arrang-
ing some settlement. He showed his power by expelling Dolan from office but at
the same time he intensified his efforts for agreement.

Mitchell was encouraged in his efforts by a majority of the operators, including
the powerful United States Steel Company and the bituminous interests represented
by Robbins. Anthracite operators, led by Baer, resisted negotiation with Mitchell,
claiming that the bituminous group were seeking, 111 the interest of their own busi-
ness, to localize strikes within the anthracite areas.

Roosevelt made his single effort toward settlement in conjunction with Mitchell
and Robbins. The President’s letter was released to coincide with an announcement
by Mitchell that the U M.W. would meet again to reconsider its position on March
15 In the time before that meeting Mitchell and Robbins began to reach agreement.
At the meeting the U.M.W. adopted Mitchell’s modest proposal for settlement, con-
fining the miners’ demand to a restoration of pay. Robbins meanwhile persuaded
most of the operators to accept this demand. The U.M.W. resolved not to call a
general coal strike but instead to authorize local strikes m cases of companies’ failing
to restore the wage cut. Mitchell had retreated to a position not unlike that of Dolan
and Lewis, but he had also kept his control. Such strikes as occurred, affecting only
a small proportion of the mines, were settled without damage to the economy

1 66

3 8 3 3 • TO JOHN ALBERT SLEICHER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 25, 1906

My dear Mr. Sleicher: Don’t you think that the result of the action of the
Senate Committee saves me from any necessity of saying anything as to these
lies in the New York Times and similar papers^ 1 1 do not care a snap of my
finger what they say. Moreover, I cannot help their saying that I am “unde-
cided and vacillating,” for the simple reason that papers like the New York
Times , both in their editorials and in their correspondence, he in response to
the demands of the big corporations that the editors and correspondents shall
lie; and lie these editors and correspondents like those of the New York
Times do, because they make their bread and butter by so doing. They do
not he because they believe it, but because they are paid to lie. I never see
the Times excepting when you or some other friend calls my attention to
it, and really I do not think it has any effect; certainly I pay no more heed
to its assaults than I would to its praise. The representatives of the railroad
interests have for a month been beseeching me to keep an “open mind,” and
of course I have been doing it; and because I thus did as they asked they
try to represent me as “vacillating”; but, my dear sir, the accusations are
bubbles that hardly last long enough even to go downstream.

With many thanks for your writing me, Sincerely yours

3834 • TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 26, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker: It seems to me that the shipping bill has at last been
put in really good shape, and I earnestly hope that you can see your way to
support it. It is not only that I thoroughly and earnestly believe in the bill
as it is now framed, though this is the chief reason for my support; but in
addition I think there is a real political need of passing it. The New England
people as well as the Puget Sound people are earnestly interested m the mat-
ter. Now the New England people have really had very little interest in the
rate business, and the New England Congressmen, who in this matter have
stood true, have been actuated primarily by loyalty to you and secondarily
by loyalty to me — that is, they have stood by the administration and the

1 The Times had said unpleasant things about both Roosevelt and the Hepburn Bill,
which was now in the Senate As for the President, he did not really want the bill
passed, the Times believed. He was publicly supporting it only as a cheap device to
obtain votes, so “why so much fuss over breaking eggs which everybody knew
would be cooked in the Senate^” Nor could the Times find anything good to say of
the Hepburn Bill itself “The foundation principle of the bill,” the Times ma in tain ed,
“is incurably vicious, and we should deplore any congressional affirmation of the
Constitutional propriety and business wisdom of Federal ratemaking ”

167

party generally. I think they ought to have a return, and I know they think
so. 1 Faithfully yours

3835 • to oscar solomon straus Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 27, 1906

My dear Air. Straus: Of course that would be a most satisfactory disposition
of the Morocco matter, from my standpoint, but I do not know that either
France or Germany would consent to it. Carl Schurz’s advice is absolutely
worthless, for he does not know anything about existing facts, and in addi-
tion, his judgment is wretchedly poor. 1 He is not an American and he is not
a present-day German. He is a left-over German of 1848, of the amiable,
visionary, impractical, revolutionary type, now soured by his own constant
wrong behavior for many years. He knows nothing whatever of modern
Germany. He has not the slightest influence there, and he has not the slightest
influence here. And what is much more important, he cannot suggest any-
thing that will do good either there or here. Modern Germany is alert, ag-
gressive, military and industrial It thinks it is a match for England and
France combined in war, and would probably be less reluctant to fight both
those powers together than they would be together to fight it. It despises the
Hague Conference and the whole Hague idea. It respects the United States
only in so far as it believes that our navy is efficient and that if sufficiently
wronged or insulted we would fight. Now I like and respect Germany, but
I am not blind to the fact that Germany does not reciprocate the feeling. I
want us to do everything we can to stay on good terms with Germany, but
I would be a fool if I were blind to the fact that Germany will not stay in
with us if we betray weakness. As for this particular case, when I see you
next I shall tell you all that I have done and you will see that I have been
using my very best efforts for peace. Sincerely yours

3836 • to Joseph gurney cannon Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 28, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker: Is there any chance at all of Representative Mann’s
bill, or some bill like it, in reference to the Panama Commission, being put
through? We only need one Commissioner. At present we have seven, four
of whom are really appointed only in deference to the requirements of the

1 The amended Gallmger ship subsidy bill had passed the Senate after a long debate
on February 14. On the following day it was referred to the House Committee on
Merchant Marine and Fisheries where, in spite of Roosevelt’s urging, it languished
and died The debate in the Senate had indicated that sectional politics, as this letter
suggests, divided the Republican party on the issue

1 Schurz had written Straus that Roosevelt would be able to persuade the European
nations to submit the Moroccan dispute to the Hague tribunal. See Oscar S. Straus,
Under Four Administrations from Cleveland to Taft (Boston, 1922), p 192.

168

law. They are of some little service as consulting engineers, but it is impos-
sible for any reasonable sum to secure the permanent services of the four
consulting engineers whom we should like to have, and the executive work
of the Commission can best be performed by a single head. If we could
secure the passage of a bill making one Commissioner I would have Shonts
as that Commissioner, Magoon would continue as Administrator of the strip,
doing just what he is now, Stevens would be Engineer, Bishop Secretary,
Benson Auditor, and Ross Purchasing Agent, just as is now the case, but none
of them would be Commissioners, and there is no point m having any of
them Commissioners. Then in place of the four other Commissioners we now
have, we would from time to time employ as consulting engineers the very
best engineers to be found in the country. From every standpoint the result
would be advantageous. 1 Sincerely yours

3837 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, March 1, 1906

My dear Mr. Ambassador: Count Gleichen, 1 who seems a very good fellow
and one who knows his business, came here with a personal letter from King
Edward Will you give to the King the enclosed letter from me in return?

Things do not look as well as they should in Algeciras. Last June the
Kaiser, entirely of his accord and without any need, promised me that if
they had the conference and the French and German representatives differed,
he would instruct the Germans to follow my directions. As my experience
has always been that a promise needlessly entered into is rarely kept, I never
expected the Kaiser to keep this one, and he has not. We may, however, get
an agreement among them. 2 3 The trouble is that with Russia out of the way
as she now is, Germany firmly believes that she can whip both France and
England. I have excellent reason for believing that the German naval authori-
ties are as confident as the German military authorities, and believe that
England is relying still upon the memory of the Nelsonic triumphs and that
they would have a first-class chance of temporarily crippling or driving off
her fleet; while the military men firmly believe that an army of fifty thousand

1 In the following November Roosevelt put into effect by an executive order the
sound principles of administration outlined in this bill. See Appendix I.

1 Count Gleichen, later Major-General, Lord Edward Gleichen, was at this time

British military attache at Berlin. The son of a prmce and grandson of an admiral
of the fleet, he served his country as an imaginative professional soldier m many parts
of the Empire. Spring Rice, writing to Sir Edward Grey of Gleichen’s trip to Wash-
ington to see Roosevelt, felt confident that “as Gleichen has been shot m die stomach
and the neck, he is quite certain to meet with a favourable reception ”

3 At this stage in the negotiations at Algeciras a deadlock had been reached between
France and Germany over the kind of international police control and banking sys-
tem to be established in Morocco. See Nevins, White , pp. 271-278, Anderson, The
First Moroccan Crisis , ch. xvii.

169

Germans landed m England would with but little difficulty take possession of
the entire island.

At home I have had some mild troubles in connection with the rate bill
Aldrich did what I have rarely seen him do he completely lost both his head
and his temper. 3 But it won’t have any effect m the long run and I shall get
just about the bill I have been fighting for.

With regards to Mrs. Reid believe me, Sincerely yours

3838 • TO SERENO STANSBURY PRATT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal and private Washington, March 3, 1906

My dear Mr. Pratt : 1 1 must just write you this private and personal letter to
say how I appreciate your article of March 2, 1906. I had not seen Colonel
Harvey’s article to which you refer, in which, having m view the break
between myself and certain of the Republican Senate leaders on the railway
rate legislation, he calls attention to the fate of Presidents Tyler and Johnson,
and points out that though Washington and Grant were popular at the
beginning of their second terms, they went out of office very unpopular. I
want to thank you heartily for so exactly interpreting my views as you have
done in your article. I have felt a slightly contemptuous amusement over
the discussion that has been going on for several months about my popularity
or waning popularity or absence of popularity. I am not a college freshman,
nor that would-be popular fox-hunting hero 111 Soapy Sponge, and therefore
I am not concerned about my “popularity” save in exactly so far as it is an
instrument which will help me to achieve my purposes. That is, in so far as
my good repute among the people helps me to secure the passage of the rate
bill, I value it. In so far as it fails to help me secure the adoption of the Santo
Domingo treaty, I do not value it. A couple of years ago or thereabouts a
good many timid souls told me that by my action in Panama I had ruined
my popularity and was no longer available as a candidate; to which I answered
that while I much wished to be a candidate and hoped that I had not ruined
my popularity, yet if it was necessary to ruin it in order to secure to the
United States the chance to build the Panama Canal, I should not hesitate a
half second, and did not understand how any man could hesitate

It is surprising to me that Colonel Harvey should not see the real meaning
of what he says about Washington, when he speaks of his having become an
object of dislike to the bulk of his fellow citizens at the end of his second
term by refusing to side with France. Washington sacrificed a temporary
popularity for the purpose of securing the permanent welfare of his country.

8 Aldrich, according to Roosevelt, had in a fit of ill temper selected Tillman to guide
the Hepburn Bill on the floor of the Senate.

a Sereno Stansbury Pratt, financial editor of the New York Times , 1903-1904, editor
of the Wall Street Journal , 1904-1908, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of
New York State, 1908-1915; a man of conservative tendencies.

X 70

I do not believe he was capable of being swayed in the matter by the con-
sideration of his own permanent repute as compared with the nation’s
permanent good. But in any event his permanent repute stood higher and not
lower because of his willingness to sacrifice the temporary popularity.

So, my dear sir, I should be quite unable to tell you whether I was or was
not now “popular.” If I am, I am also entirely prepared to believe that I shall
be extremely unpopular before I go out. But this is not what I am concerning
myself about. I am not paying heed to public opinion; I am paying heed to
the public interest; and if I can accomplish, not all that I desire, but a reason-
able proportion of what I desire, by the end of my term (and in the four
and a half years that have gone by I have succeeded m accomplishing such
reasonable proportion) why, I am more than satisfied.

With regard, Sincerely yours

3839 • to a. Ambrose agius Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, March 3, 1906

My dear Archbishop : 1 What you propose cannot be done save by act of
Congress. I have consulted Secretary Taft and Secretary Bonaparte, who is
of your own church, about the matter. We feel in full sympathy with your
views as to the urgent need of money for your church in the Philippines. Of
course I do not understand why the money paid to the friars has not at least
in part been returned for the uses of the church m the islands, as we certainly
understood would be the case; but this is a matter for your church authorities
and not for the Government.

As regards what you propose, you must understand that only Congress
can appropriate money, and without the authority of Congress I cannot give
a single dollar. We shall recommend that Congress immediately grant the
amount actually awarded, and then we shall see if it is not possible to secure
an extra grant, for Secretary Taft says he thinks you should have this extra
grant and that you have a moral although probably not a legal right to it. But
what Congress will do with our recommendations I have not the slightest
idea. Congressman Bourke Cockran heartily agrees with these plans. Sincerely
yours

3840 • TO BELLAMY STORER Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Washington, March 5, 1906

You have not answered my letter of December eleventh although I supple-
mented it by another letter of February third. I do not know whether this is

1 Archbishop A. Ambrose Agius, apostolic delegate to the Philippines, was pressing
Roosevelt for settlement of the debt due the Roman Catholic Church for the rental
and occupation of Catholic properties in the Philippines by the United States Army.
Negotiations and hearings in this matter, then under way, continued into the summer,
preventing action by the Congress then in session.

because you do not wish to remain in the diplomatic service or are unwilling
to comply with the requirements which I have stated. In either event I request
your resignation as Ambassador.

3841 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS ,

Personal Washington, March 5, 1906

Dear Senator Beveridge: I am much obliged for your brief and interesting
sketch of Napoleon. I do not believe with you, however, in the very un-
Napoleonic idea of going out of business in view of any signal defeat. Inci-
dentally you expect me to make Taft admit that the measure he has most at
heart is definitely beaten. I neither could, nor would do it. His utterance has
not the slightest earthly effect upon the statehood fight. I have done just as
you suggested. I have dropped everything m connection with the Philippine
bill, and shall drop it until after both the statehood and the rate bills are
disposed of. Sincerely yours

3842 ■ TO EDWARD DESHON BRANDEGEE Roosevelt M$S.

Personal Washington, March 7, 1906

Dear Ned: I have received your two letters. About the football situation, it
is unnecessary for me to say how I sympathize with you, and I shall take any
ground you wish me to on the matter. I shall call over Bob Bacon this morning
to consult him. Let me know if there is anything I can do by writing and by
using any kind of language in the premises. I am perfectly willing to say that
I think Harvard will be doing the baby act if she takes any such foolish course
as President Eliot advises! 1 I should omit President Eliot’s name from the
statement, of course.

As to the other matter, my dear Ned, it is simply impossible for me to
give you a definite answer three years m advance. People have spoken to me
about it, of course. I had never thought of myself as president of a college.
I have not the slightest idea how I would do as such, and I haven’t an idea
whether when I get out of here I will feel that I could immediately go into
such work; nor do I know whether any work will be offered to me of any
kind, or rather, whether the chance of any work will come up, and if so, what
kind of work. I would hate to commit myself definitely so far in advance.
Any President on retiring ought to be proud and grateful to serve as President

1 President Eliot never succeeded in understanding two of the most popular
college sports. The curved ball was “a low form of cunning,” and the “manly way
to play football” was “to attack the strongest part of the opponents’ line ” At this
time he wished to have Harvard abandon football, “a brutal, cheating, demoralizing
game.” Though he disliked both sports, he was moved, in this instance, more by his
feeling that intercollegiate athletics were already assuming a distorted position m
college life. The Board of Overseers, however, disagreed with him, m May it voted
to continue football,

17*

of Harvard. But to say that I would serve is impossible for me now, simply
because I do not know what the circumstances will be. It is very unlikely that
other work, in which I should feel that with my peculiar abilities and non-
abilities I could do better, would arise, but it is always possible . 1 2
With hearty thanks, my dear fellow, Ever yours

3843 - TO JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE RoOSevelt MSS.

Private and personal Washington, March 7, 1906

Dear Mr. Roche : I shall read that book slowly and painfully* (because of my
Italian) but with genuine interest, and especially the account of the battle of
Lissa. Incidentally I may add that I was as disappointed as you with Mahan’s
War of 1812. He is a curious fellow, for he cannot write in effective shape
of the navy or of the fighting of his own country.

It was good to get your letter, and it was written with all your old vigor
and charm of style, so I venture to hope that you are in good shape physically.
I look forward to the receipt of that short story in verse. The Genoese Senate
is not the only one that now and then goes crooked on matters of the army,
the navy, foreign policy, and the national honor! I hang my head with shame
over some of Senator Hale’s utterances when I think he is a leader of my
own party in the Senate and the Chairman of the Naval Committee.

With warm regards to Mrs. Roche, believe me, Faithfully yours

3844 • TO EDWARD PAYSON BACON Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 9, 1906

My dear Mr. Bacon: 1 1 have your letter of the 7th instant. The great merit
of the Spooner proposition is one upon which I do not think you have
touched at all, and that is that it will act as a very effective deterrent upon
railroads from making motions for a stay, merely for purposes of delay. This
is a very important benefit. Moreover, the amendment will, in my judgment,
in a considerable number of cases benefit not merely the shipper but the
producer. If it should happen that the courts granted stays too indiscrimi-
nately this amendment would offer the only feasible way that I now see by
which partially at least we could accomplish the very end we have in view,
that is, making the Commission’s order operative at once. You may have
seen that Senator Bailey in supporting his own unconstitutional and otherwise
indefensible proposition to prevent the courts from giving stays at all, said

2 There was already a lively interest in Roosevelt’s future plans. An article in the
New York Herald on January 21, 1906, suggested that the President would run for a
third term Some thought he might succeed Eliot at Harvard. Later, in May, Nicholas
Murray Buder asked Roosevelt to consider entering the Senate from New York.

1 Edward Payson Bacon, Milwaukee gram merchant, long a leading spirit in the

movement for effective regulation of the railroads and at this time a firm supporter
of Roosevelt’s program.

173

that if his proposition was not adopted that the Spooner proposition was
essential in order to make the bill effective. I do not agree with him in this,
and feel with you that under the proposed bill stays would not be given with
the frequency that he supposes, and this is likewise the opinion of Commis-
sioner Prouty. Moreover, there is great force in the suggestion of Senators
Dolliver and Clapp that if we can get through the law without putting in the
Spooner amendment, we can then after six or nine months’ trial, without any
difficulty pass another law embodying the principle of the Spooner amend-
ment, if in actual practice it be found that the number of stays granted by
the courts is disproportionately large. I do not regard it as a vital matter one
way or the other . 2 Sincerely yours

2 The amendments mentioned in this letter were two of several proposed for the
Hepburn Bill which had been reported out of the Senate Committee on Interstate
Commerce unamended. As soon as the bill reached the floor of the Senate, attacks
m various forms were made upon it. Aldrich, the leader of the opposition, achieved
an initial advantage by two adroit maneuvers He designated Tillman to guide the
bill on the floor m place of Dolliver who had expected the honor. The selection of
Tillman was an irritation to Roosevelt, the animosity that had prevented the two
men from speaking to each other for years had only the preceding January been
aggravated by one of the senator’s recurrent lude attacks on the President’s char-
acter Although, m this instance, the two subdued their personal feelings m the in-
terests of the Hepburn Bill, they communicated primarily through ex-Senator
William E. Chandler. A more friendly floor manager would have been an asset
to the President in the delicate parliamentary situation of 1906

Aldrich’s second maneuver was more significant. He obtained for each com-
mittee member the right to propose amendments on the floor, thus transferring the
issue of railroad regulation to the larger arena m which he had for so long had his
way. Amendments were soon forthcoming. They dealt with the two points on which
opposition in the Senate concentrated. The first point was over the question of a
railroad’s right to judicial review of maximum rate decisions of the Interstate Com-
merce Commission Many senators believed that the constitutional right of review
was implicit m the rate-makmg clause of the unamended act, but the general feeling
was in favor of an explicit statement of the railroad’s right. There was, further, a
division of opinion over the question of the extent of the federal review that should
be provided. Men favorable to the Hepburn Bill wished to limit review to procedural
questions while opponents of the bill hoped to emasculate it by providing for broad
judicial interpretation of the facts m each case. Aldrich favored Senator Knox’s
amendment which empowered the courts to pass on the “lawfulness” of the com-
mission’s orders — a term so vague as to invite continuing litigation. Senator Long
presented a more moderate amendment bearing on that question. After consultation
with Roosevelt, he proposed that the power of the circuit courts be hmited to the
determination, m any suit, of whether the order of the I.C C. was beyond the au-
thority of the commission or in violation of the rights of the carrier secured by the
Constitution. The court had no power to suspend orders. Bailey, while favoring
broad review, introduced an amendment which expressly deprived the courts of the
authority to issue writs of injunction suspending rate orders. These amendments
protected the rate-making power of the commission, as Roosevelt desired, from the
courts.

The second point at issue was over the time when a rate, contested by the rail-
roads, should be applied, whether before or after judicial review. Roosevelt favored,
naturally, the former. Spooner, attempting to resolve the differences arising over this
issue, had proposed an intelligent compromise According to his plan, these decisions,
as the Aldrich group demanded, should not take effect until after judicial review
During the period of litigation, however, the railroad appealing the decision was to

174

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, March io, 1906

3845 * TO GORDON JOHNSTON

Telegram
How are you> 1

3846 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 1 1, 1906

Dear Kermit: Apparently Ted is doing well. Funnily enough, I too had kept
thinking about Pendennis’ experiences when I heard about Ted. But Ted
has got a good deal more of stuff in him than Pendennis had, and I firmly
believe that he will turn to now and make things all right.

I agree with pretty much all your views both about Thackeray and
Dickens, although you care for some of Thackeray of which I am not per-
sonally fond. Mother loves it all. Mother, by the way, has been reading the
Legend of Montrose to the little boys and they are absorbed in it. She finds it
hard to get anything that will appeal to both Archie and Quentin as they
possess such different natures, Quentin being the brighter and more light-
hearted of the two and Archie having more soul and strength of character.

I am quite proud of what Archie did the day before yesterday. Some of
the bigger boys were throwing a baseball around outside of Mr. Sidwell’s
school 1 and it hit one of them square in the eye, breaking all the bloodvessels
and making an extremely dangerous hurt. The other boys were all rattled
and could do nothing, finally sneaking off when Mr Sidwell appeared. Archie
stood by and himself promptly suggested that the boy should go to Dr.
Wilmer. 2 Accordingly he scorched down to Dr, Wilmer’s and said there was
an emergency case for one of Mr. Sidwell’s boys, who was hurt m the eye,
and could he bring him. Dr. Wilmer, who did not know Archie was there,
sent out word to of course do so. So Archie scorched back on his wheel, got
the boy (I do not know why Mr Sidwell did not take him himself) and led
him down to Dr. Wilmer’s, who attended to his eye and had to send him at
once to a hospital, Archie waiting until he heard the result and then coming

place m escrow, for all transactions undertaken, the full difference between the
original and the revised rate. If the court sustained the ruling of the I C C., the money
m escrow w r as to go to the shippers This plan had the dual ment of protecting the
shipper and of eliminating any reason for prolonging litigation. Extremists on both
sides of the question, however, combined to defeat the proposal

x Gordon Johnston, United States Army, Rough Rider, had been wounded by a
native woman m the battle against the Moros at Mount Dajo Johnston replied from
Zamboanga on March nth with the comment, “Fine, thanks” The Chicago Inter
Ocean , March 18, 1906, claimed that the exchange demonstrated that “when all is
said and done, American democracy is real — is a living force ”

1 Sidwell’s Friends School, founded by the Quaker, Thomas Watson Sidwell m 1803.
3 William Holland Wilmer, the great ophthalmologist, professor of this subject at
Georgetown University, 1906-1925, later director of the Wilmer Ophthalmology
Institute at Johns Hopkins University

l 75

home. Dr. Wilmer told me about it and said if Archie had not acted with such
promptness the boy (who was four or five years older than Archie, by the
way) would have lost his sight.

What a heavenly place a sandbox is for two little boys! Archie and
Quentin play industriously in it during most of their spare moments when
out in the grounds. I often look out of the office windows when I have a
score of Senators and Congressmen with me and see them both hard at work
arranging caverns or caves or mountains, with runways for their marbles.

Good-bye, blessed fellow. I shall think of you very often during the
coming week, and I am so very glad that Mother is to be with you at your
confirmation. Your loving father

3847 • TO ANNA CABOT MILLS LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 1 1, 1906

Dear Nannie: I write to you because I feel more confidence in my ability to
exert a favorable response from you than from Cabot. Can you have me to
dinner either Wednesday or Friday? Would you be willing to have Bay
and Bessie also 5 Then we could discuss the Hittite empire, the Pithecanthro-
pus, and Magyar love songs, and the exact relations of the Atli of the Vol-
sunga Saga to the Etzel of the Nibelungenlied, and of both to Attila — with
interludes by Cabot about the rate bill, Beveridge, and other matters of more
vivid contemporary interest. Ever yours

3848 • to james Wilson Roosevelt Mss.

Private Washington, March 12, 1906

My dear Secretary Wilson: I wish you would carefully read through this
letter yourself. It is evident that we do not want any merely perfunctory
investigation at this time. The experiences that Moody has had in dealing with
these beef trust people convinces me that there is very little that they will
stop at. You know the wholesale newspaper bribery which they have un-
doubtedly indulged in. Now, I do not think that an ordinary investigation
will reach anything. I would like a first-class man to be appointed to meet
Sinclair, as he suggests; get the names of the witnesses, as he suggests; and
then go to work in the industry, as he suggests. You must keep absolutely
secret your choice of a man. Don’t set about getting a man without consulting
me. We cannot afford to have anythmg perfunctory done in this matter. I
wish you would take this letter and read it over with Garfield. 1 Sincerely
yours

'Upton Sinclair was primarily responsible for calling Roosevelt’s attention to the
dangerous conditions in the packing industry. By his book, The Jungle, and his per-
sonal appeal to the President in the letter menuoned above, he deeply impressed
Roosevelt who directed Secretary Wilson to investigate the Chicago meat-packing
industry immediately. Wilson had already asked the Bureau of Ammal Industry to
undertake such an investigation, but little had been accomplished Since there was

176

3849 * TO HERBERT JAMES HAGERMAN Roosevelt MSS .

Telegram Washington, March 13, 1906

Secretary Hitchcock has shown me your letter of March eighth. I entirely
approve of your course. I shall give you an entirely free hand in the Territory
because I hold you to an absolute responsibility for the conduct of affairs.
Remove whenever you deem wise the three men whom you report as unsatis-
factory and improper government officials, 1 and any others whom you thus
find to be unsatisfactory and improper. If any of my appointees hamper you,
let me know at once and I will remove them. You are welcome to show this
telegram to any person you desire.

3850 • TO KENTARO KANEKO Roosevelt MSS.

Private, but this can be Washington, March 14, 1906

shown to your colleagues.

My dear Baron Kaneko: I have your letter of February 18th. In accordance
with what I told Baron Komura and you, after the peace negotiations were
ended I furnished Mr. Witte, to present to the Czar, the communications I
had addressed through you to the Japanese Imperial Government, explaining
to him at the same time that I had already submitted to the Japanese Govern-
ment the messages I had sent to the Czar. These letters were given to him to
submit to the Czar, because he knew that I had sent such letters and I did not

already much public criticism of the bureau’s methods of inspection, the President
and secretary agreed that there should also be a simultaneous inquiry by Charles P.
Neill, commissioner of labor, and James Bronson Reynolds, who had no official con-
nection with the department. These investigations revealed that the conditions in the
slaughterhouses and packing plants so frighteningly described by Sinclair actually
existed. Public and congressional support was quickly mobilized behind the remedial
proposals in Senator Beveridge’s amendment of May 25, 1906, to the Agricultural
Appropriations Bill From early March until the end of June 1906 and particularly
after the disposition of the Hepburn Bill, Roosevelt gave continual attention in his
correspondence to the conditions in the packing industry; see especially Numbers
3921, 3930, 3934, 3938, 3971. For useful published accounts, see Annual Reports of
the Department of Agncultzire , 1906 (Washington, 1907), pp 124-127, House Docu-
ment, 59 Cong , 1 sess., no 873 , Congressional Record, 59 Cong., 1 sess., 40, part 8,
pp 7800-7802, Bowers, Beveridge , pp. 226-233, Pringle, Roosevelt, pp. 428-429,
Roosevelt, Autobiography, Nat. Ed. XX, 434-435.

1 Herbert James Hagerman, Territorial Governor of New Mexico, had removed the
territorial secretary, attorney general, and supermtendent of prisons, all influential
Republicans. Of these men, the last had been guilty of keeping fraudulent accounts,
the others lax m performing the duties of their offices

Hagerman had been second secretary of the American Embassy m Russia while
Hitchcock was ambassador On Hitchcock’s recommendation, he was appointed ter-
ritorial governor m 1906. Handsome, of good intentions, innocent, Hagerman while
attempting to reform the Territory became unwittingly a collaborator m one of
William H Andrews’ land swindles. This unhappy episode produced misunderstand-
ings and recriminations between Hagerman and Roosevelt, and led inevitably to the
former’s forced resignation in 1907 See No. 4394

177

wish the Czar to be in ignorance of what I had advised, or think that I was ad-
vising one thing to the Japanese Emperor and another to him. Extraordinary
to relate, Mr. Witte showed these letters not only to the English correspond-
ent you mention, but also to a French correspondent, for they appeared not
merely in the review in question, but previously to that in a Parisian paper,
I think Le Temps . I am wholly unable to understand either how Mr. Witte
could thus have shown them or how his Government could have pardoned
him for showing them. They were entrusted to him simply to deliver to the
Czar, and yet even before delivering them to the Czar he showed them to
newspaper correspondents. Of course, as far as I was personally concerned
I cared not a rap, for I had nothing to conceal and as long as peace had been
obtained the possibility of doing damage by showing the letters had gone;
and I was careful not to give them to Mr. Witte until after peace had been
obtained.

There is but one portion of the correspondence which I have received,
from either side, which I have kept absolutely secret, being careful that no
one knew it who might possibly publish it, and with this object in view keep-
ing it not in the files of the State Department but in my own office in a vault.
This was that portion of the letter from the Japanese Government (on which
I acted in cabling to the Czar last June) which requested me to take the
initiative in bringing about the negotiations. 1 This dispatch I have been care-
ful to keep so that by no possibility could its contents be made public, those
who know of it being our own officials, who can be trusted without question.
You may have noticed that there has never been the slightest suspicion that I
acted only upon Japan’s request. You may also have noticed that since the
signing of the treaty at Portsmouth I have never in any public address said
anything whatever about the peace negotiations, and that no documents
whatever in relation to it have been published.

I congratulate you most heartily, my dear Baron, upon your appointment
by the Emperor to be His Majesty’s Privy Councillor with Marquis Ito and
Baron Komura. May I ask you to present my particular regard to both the
Marquis and the Baron^ May I also ask you to accept my good wishes both
for you and the Baroness 13 Sincerely yours

3851 • to upton Sinclair Roosevelt Mss,

Personal Washington, March 15, 1906

My dear Mr, Sinclair : I have your letter of the 13 th instant. I have now read,
if not all, yet a good deal of your book, and if you can come down here dur-
ing the first week m April I shall be particularly glad to see you.

I do not think very much of your ecclesiastical correspondent. A quarter
of a century’s hard work over what I may call politico-sociological problems
has made me distrust men of hysterical temperament. I think the preacher

1 See Dennett, Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War , Appendix A, pp. 215-216.

178

furnishes his measure when he compares you to Tolstoy, Zola and Gorki,
intending thereby to praise you. The abortiveness of the late revolution in
Russia sprang precisely from the fact that too much of the leadership was
of the Gorki type and therefore the kind of leadership which can never lead
anybody anywhere save into a Serbonian bog. Of course the net result of
Zola’s writings has been evil. Where one man has gained from them a shudder-
ing horror at existing wrong which has impelled him to try to right that
wrong, a hundred have simply had the lascivious, the beast side of their
natures strengthened and intensified by them. Oliver Wendell Holmes has an
excellent paragraph on this in his Over the Teacups . As for Tolstoy, his
novels are good, but his so-called religious and reformatory writings con-
stitute one of the age-forces which tell seriously for bad. His Kreutzer Sonata
could only have been written by a man of diseased moral nature, a man in
whose person the devotee and debauchee alternately obtain sway, as they
sometimes do in successive generations of decadent families or in whole com-
munities of unhealthy social conditions In the end of your book, among the
various characters who preach socialism, almost all betray the pathetic belief
that the individual capacity which is unable to raise itself even in the com-
paratively simple work of directing the individual how to earn his own
livelihood, will, when it becomes the banded incapacity of all the people,
succeed in doing admirably a form of government work infinitely more com-
plex, infinitely more difficult than any which the most intelligent and highly
developed people has ever yet successfully tried. Personally I think that one
of the chief early effects of such attempt to put socialism of the kind there
preached into practice, would be the elimination by starvation, and the dis-
eases, moral and physical, attendant upon starvation, of that same portion of
the community on whose behalf socialism would be invoked. Of course you
have read Wyckoff’s 1 account of his experiences as an unskilled laborer of the
lowest class. Probably you know him. He was a Princeton man wholly with-
out the physique to do manual labor as well as the ordinary manual laborer
can do it, yet in going across the continent his experience was that in every
place, sooner or later, and in most places very soon indeed, a man not very
strong physically and working at trades that did not need intelligence, could
raise himself to a position where he had steady work and where he could
save and lead a self-respecting life. There are doubtless communities where
such self-raismg is very hard for the time being, there are unquestionably men
who are crippled by accident (as by being old and having large families
dependent on them) ; there are many, many men who lack any intelligence or
character and who therefore cannot thus raise themselves. But while I agree
with you that energetic, and, as I believe, in the long run radical, action must

1 Walter Augustas Wyckoff worked his way from Connecticut to California, 1891-
1893, m order to study social and economic conditions throughout the country He
published accounts of his trip in The Workers — The East (New York, 1897) and
The Workers — The West (New York, 1898) In 1898 Wyckoff became an assistant
professor of political economy at Princeton

179

be taken to do away with the effects of arrogant and selfish greed on the part
of the capitalist, yet I am more than ever convinced that the real factor in
the elevation of any man or any mass of men must be the development within
his or their hearts and heads of the qualities which alone can make either the
individual, the class or the nation permanently useful to themselves and to
others. Sincerely yours

[. Handwritten ] But all this has nothing to do with the fact that the
specific evils you point out shall, if their existence be proved, and if I have
power, be eradicated.

3852 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, March 13, 1906

To the Secretary of State: On Monday next, March 19th, I desire to send to
the Senate the nomination of Charles S. Francis as Ambassador to the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, vice Storer recalled. I have received no answer from
Ambassador Storer to my letter of December 1 ith or to my letter of February
3rd or to my cable of March 5th. He has received all three communications,
however, as appears from the fact that I have received from a high ecclesiastic
a communication on his behalf having reference to my first letter to him;
and I have received indirectly two cable communications from the editor of
a New York paper who is now in Egypt with Storer in reference to my cable
to him. Why he persistently declines to answer I do not know; but whatever
the explanation it cannot be satisfactory.

I return herewith the letters of Senators Platt and Depew in behalf of Mr
Francis, and also enclose one from ex-Governor Black commending Mr.
Francis for the Ambassadorship.

3833 • TO WILLIAM MACKAY LAFFAN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, March 13, 1906

My dear Mr. Laffan: Mr. Mitchell 1 sent to Mr. Oulahan and Mr. Oulahan
read to me your cable from Luxor in the Bellamy Storer matter. This cable
referred in part to the statement I had made to Mr. Oulahan a week pre-
viously, when he had come to me because of the information sent to the
Sun, I suppose from Egypt, about this Storer matter.

I went over your request with Root. I trust you know that if it were a
matter in which I felt able to do as you desired I would most gladly do so
But my dear Mr. Laffan, it is out of the question for me to do anything
further in this Storer case. When I see you I will give you in detail the various
incidents which finally rendered it literally intolerable that Mr. Storer
‘Edward Page Mitchell, since 1875 on the editorial staff of the New York Sun

180

should remain Ambassador if Mrs. Storer continued to act as she was acting.
These culminated early in December last by two letters sent by Mrs. Storer
to Taft and myself, requesting us to cable her authorization to go as the
accredited agent of the Government directly to the Pope to secure a cardinal’s
hat for Archbishop Ireland. I showed the letters to Secretary Root. They
contained quotations from various people, laymen and ecclesiastics, Ameri-
cans and foreigners, with whom Mrs. Storer had been talking on the subject,
and to whom she had evidently been repeating what purported to be my
position in the matter. Root’s feeling was very strong that I ought to dismiss
Storer at once — that is, request his resignation at once; that it was too
dangerous to the country and to the administration longer to permit a
woman capable of such acts to continue as the wife of an American Ambas-
sador. His feeling was very strong. I called in Secretary Bonaparte, who
belongs to Mrs. Storer’s church, and went over the matter with him. Finally
I made up my mind that because of my old affection for the Storers (you
doubtless know that I appointed him Ambassador against the will of the
Ohio people and purely on my own initiative, save in so far as Archbishop
Ireland also desired it), I would do what I would have done for no other
Ambassador; that is, would write him enclosing a letter to her and simply say
that if he were to remain m the service she must make me certain definite
promises in writing. On December i ith I thus wrote him, enclosing a letter
to her which I asked him to read and then to hand to her. In this letter I went
at length into the whole subject, and at the end told her that if Bellamy was
to continue in the service she must give me m writing a definite pledge to
abstain absolutely from the conduct in which she had been indulging, which
conduct might at any moment cause the greatest scandal to this nation
Shortly after this letter must have reached them two cables came from Mrs
Storer — one to Mrs. Roosevelt, through whom her former letter to me had
been sent, and one to Taft. The one to Mrs. Roosevelt asked her to return
unopened a letter which she would receive from Mrs. Storer. The letter to
Taft asked him to forward unopened to Bishop Ireland a letter he would
receive from Mrs. Storer. Mrs. Roosevelt returned her letter unopened.
Secretary Root and I thought it improper for Taft to forward an unknown
letter from the wife of an Ambassador to an outsider, and he returned it
unopened to Mrs. Storer instead. Mrs. Storer had meanwhile informed the
Longworths that she was coming over to the wedding of her nephew, Nick,
and my daughter. She now telegraphed that she was not coming. Application
was made to the State Department by Storer for a leave of absence, of which
Root informed me, saying he supposed Storer was coming to the Umted
States From an outsider I learned that he was going to Egypt and not the
United States; and as by that time nearly two months had elapsed without
any answer to my letter, I on February 3d wrote him again requesting an
answer I afterwards received a letter from Archbishop Ireland saying that

181

he had heard from Mrs. Storer and that she would not offend again, and that
he hoped I would send Storer as a Special Ambassador to Spain on the occa-
sion of the coronation of the King. I wrote him back that in my judgment
it aggravated the offense of the Storers in not answering me that they should
nevertheless write on the subject to any outsider, even to one whom I liked as
I did him. Still hearing nothing from Storer, on March jth I cabled requesting
his resignation, in the cable reciting the dates at which I had written so that
if he had failed to receive my letters or had any excuse whatever (although
I could not imagine that he had any) he could cable me. Again, he did not
answer the cable, nor have I heard from him yet; nor has the State Depart-
ment heard from him in answer to either of my letters or to the cable, al-
though over three months have gone by since I first wrote him. Two days
after I sent this cable Mr. Oulahan came to see me, asking me for information
about the alleged removal of Mr. Storer. It now appears that this information
came from Egypt, and I suppose from you, although I know nothing of
this. I told Mr. Oulahan the facts, though I afterwards gathered that he
understood what I said as to the condition I imposed as applying not to the
letter I wrote Mr. Storer on December 3d but to the cable sent on March 5th.
My memory is not perfectly clear about this, as I think Mr. Oulahan had
two conversations with me at the time, in addition to his conversation yester-
day, when he brought me from Mr. Mitchell your cable suggesting that Mr.
Root might be willing to arrange that Mr. Storer should be sent for instead of
his resignation being insisted upon. It thus appears that though Mr. Storer
told you about the cable, he did not answer it to me, just as Mrs. Storer
wrote to Archbishop Ireland about my letter while neither she nor her hus-
band answered my letters to them. I am the President, Storer is the American
Ambassador. Without any reference to the original trouble, it is simply out
of the question to keep in the diplomatic service any man who behaves as
Storer has done about these letters and this cable of mine.

Since the correspondence began other complaints have come to me; com-
plaints of Mrs. Storer’s interference in the affairs of another Ambassador,
Harry White, and complaints presented in an unofficial way from persons
connected with the French Government about certain intrigues in connection
with the Bonapartists and Legitimists which she is alleged to have indulged
in in Paris. But I have not considered either of these matters. If any other
Ambassador — George Meyer or Whitelaw Reid or Harry White — had
acted as Storer has acted, I would have shown them no such consideration as
I have shown Storer; I would have removed them out of hand. To Storer I
have given every possible consideration, every possible chance to stay m if
he would agree to behave himself (or rather, to have Mrs. Storer behave her-
self), or to resign of his own accord. The matter is now at an end and he must

g°.

With regret, and looking forward to seeing you when you return so that
I may tell you all the facts in the case, I am, Sincerely yours

182

3 8 J4 * to william Howard TAFT Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, March 15, 1906

Dear Will: I received your letter and afterwards had a half-hour’s talk with
your dear wife.

Judging from one phrase of your letter I think I have been m error as to
your feeling. You say that it is your decided personal preference to continue
your present work. This I had not understood. On the contrary I gathered
that what you really wanted to do was to go on the bench, and that my
urging was in the line of your inclination, but in a matter in which you were
in doubt as to your duty.

What you say in your letter and what your dear wife says alter the case.
My dear Will, it is pre-eminently a matter in which no other man can take
the responsibility of deciding for you what it is right and best for you to do.
Nobody could decide for me whether I should go to the war or stay as As-
sistant Secretary of the Navy. Nobody could decide for me whether I should
accept the Vice-Presidency, or try to continue as Governor. Nobody could
decide for Garfield whether he should go on as Commissioner of Corporations
or become a District Judge; or for Root, whether he should decline the
Governorship, or the following year accept the Secretaryship of State. In
each case it is the man himself who is to lead his life after having decided one
way or the other. No one can lead that life for him; and neither he nor
anyone else can afford to have anyone else make the decision for him; because
the vital factor in the decision must be the equation of the man himself.

As far as I am personally concerned I could not put myself m your place
because I am not a lawyer and would under no circumstances, even if I had
been trained for a lawyer, have any leaning toward the bench; so in your
case I should as a matter of course accept the three years’ of service in the
War Department, dealing with the Panama and Philippine question, and then
abide the fall of the dice as to whether I became President, or continued in
public life m some less conspicuous position, or went back to the practice of
the law — but mind you I would not for a moment contemplate leaving Ohio,
for after fifty a man does not as a rule do well if he leaves his native State,
at least for an older State. But I appreciate as every thoughtful man must the
immense importance of the part to be played by the Supreme Court in the
next twenty-five years I do not at all like the social conditions at present.
The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men, their greed and arrogance, and
the way in which they have unduly prospered by the help of the ablest
lawyers, and too often through the weakness or shortsightedness of the judges
or by their unfortunate possession of meticulous minds; these facts, and
the corruption m business and politics, have tended to produce a very
unhealthy condition of excitement and irritation m the popular mind, which
shows itself in part in the enormous increase m the socialistic propaganda.
Nothing effective, because nothing at once honest and intelligent, is being

183

done to combat the great amount of evil which, mixed with a little good, a
little truth, is contained in the outpourings of the Cosmopolitan, of
McClure's, of Collier's, of Tom Lawson, of David Graham Phillips, of
Upton Sinclair. Some of these are socialists, some of them merely lurid
sensationalists; but they are all building up a revolutionary feeling which
will most probably take the form of a political campaign. Then we may
have to do, too late or almost too late, what had to be done in the silver
campaign when in one summer we had to convince a great many good
people that what they had been laboriously taught for several years previous
was untrue. In the free silver campaign one most unhealthy feature of the
situation was that m their panic the conservative forces selected as their real
champion Hanna, a man with many good qualities, but who embodied in
himself more than any other big man, all the forces of coarse corruption that
had been so prominent in our industrial and political life, and the respectable
people either gave to him or approved of the giving to him of a colossal
bribery fund. As it happens, I think that in that campaign for the most part
the funds were honestly used as a means of convincing people; but the obliga-
tions Hanna incurred and the way in which the fund was raised were most
unfortunate. I earnestly hope that if any similar contest of a more important
kind has to be waged m the future that the friends of conservatism and order
will make their fight under different kinds of leaders and by different
methods.

Under such circumstances you would be the best possible leader, and
with your leadership we could rest assured that only good methods would
prevail. In such contest you could do very much if you were on the bench;
you could do very much if you were in active political life outside. I think
you could do most as President; but you could do very much as Chief
Justice; and you could do less, but still very much, either as Senator or as
Associate Justice. Where you can fight best I cannot say, for you know
what your soul turns to better than I can.

As I see the situation it is this. There are strong arguments against your
taking this justiceship. In the first place my belief is that of all the men that
have appeared so far you are the man who is most likely to receive the
Republican Presidential nomination and who is, I think, the best man to
receive it; and under whom we would have most chance to succeed. It may
well be that Root would be at least as good a President as either you or I; but
he does not touch the people at as many points as you and I touch them.
He would probably not be as good a candidate as I was, or as you would be.
It is not a light thing to cast aside the chance of the Presidency; even though
of course it is a chance, however good a one. It would be a very foolish
thing for you to get it into your thoughts, so that your sweet and fine
nature would be warped and you would become bitter and sour as Henry
Clay and Tom Reed became; and thank Heaven this is absolutely impossible.

184

But it is well to remember that the shadow of the Presidency falls on no
man twice, save in the most exceptional circumstances. The good you could
do in four or eight years as the head of the Nation would be incalculable.
Furthermore, casting aside the question of the Presidency, if you do not go
on the bench you have three years of vital, important service in connection
with the Panama canal and the Philippines, not to speak of the regular army
itself, and the certainty, if not on the bench, that in the future you will be
one of the great leaders for right in the tremendous contests that are sure to
arise through the play of the half hidden forces now in blind revolt, against
not only what is bad but against much that is good, and against much that
is inevitable, in the present industrial system. Finally, there is a chance that
you might well take a position on the bench sometime during the next three
years through a vacancy occurring; although I do not think very much of
this argument, because the reasons which I consider weighty as against your
taking the present vacancy would obtain just as much at any time within
the next two years; and after the Presidential nomination, if you were not
nominated, though they would not obtain to the same degree they would
still obtain partially, when of course your chance of being put upon the
bench might be much smaller. Moreover, the chance of your obtaining the
Chief Justiceship would of course be lessened, for it might be, although it
probably would not be, the case, that I might find some big man like Root
or Knox who would consent to take the present vacancy if he knew that the
Chief Justiceship was open but who would not take it if he knew that the
appointment was foreclosed; and under such circumstances I would not feel
that I had the right to foreclose it. I do not regard this argument as important
because I do not believe that the big men I have m mind would now go on
the bench in any event, but it is an argument that must be considered. In
other words the fact must be faced that it is possible, although improbable,
that not to go on the bench now means your definitely keeping off it; al-
though I do not myself have any serious doubt that even if the opportunity
did not come for me to put you on the bench it would come under some
subsequent President.

The chief arguments in favor of your accepting the position are: first
and infinitely foremost, the fact that it does give you, humanly speaking, the
opportunity for a quarter of a century to do a great work as Justice of the
greatest court in Christendom (a court which now sadly needs great men) on
questions which seem likely vitally and fundamentally to affect the social,
industrial and political structure of our commonwealth. A small secondary
point is that it would increase your chance of being Chief Justice, making it
certain that you would be such if the vacancy occurred during my term.
But as I have said, I do not attach any importance to this point because it
might be if you did not go on now that if the vacancy did occur in my term
I could appoint you anyhow (and indeed probably would, save in such an

185

event as I speak of above); while I feel that the probabilities would also
favor any Republican successor of mine appointing you to the position if he
got the chance.

Now, my dear Will, there is the situation as I see it. It is a hard choice to
make, and you yourself have to make it. You have two alternatives before
you, each with uncertain possibilities, and you cannot be sure that which-
ever you take you will not afterwards feel that it would have been better if
you had taken the other. But whichever you take I know that you will
render great and durable service to the Nation for many years to come, and
I feel that you should decide in accordance with the promptings of your
own liking, of your own belief as to where you can render the service which
most appeals to you, as well as that which you feel is most beneficial to the
Nation. No one can with wisdom advise you. 1 Sincerely yours

3855 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 19, 1906

To the Attorney General: This is an infamous article. Is it possible to proceed
against Debs and the proprietor of this paper criminally? I haven’t another
copy of the article, but please notify the Post-Office Department so that
the paper may not be allowed in the mails, if we can legally keep it out. 1

3856 • TO MARTIN AUGUSTINE KNAPP RoOSevelt MSS.

Washington, March 19, 1906

My dear Mr. Knapp: I shall of course expect you in your investigation under
the Congressional resolution not in any way to touch upon Mr. Garfield’s
field until Mr. Garfield has finished his report and until I have sent that report

1 “Two facts,” wrote Taft’s sympathetic biographer, “regarding the presidential
campaign of 1908 may now be set forth categorically The first is that Taft had
reluctantly become a candidate for the Republican nomination by the summer of
1905. The second is that he received, during 1905 and 1906, every possible assurance
— everything short of a public announcement — that he could count on the active
support of Theodore Roosevelt” (Pringle, Taft, I, 31 1 ) Prodded by his wife, Taft
declined Roosevelt’s offer to appoint him Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
in place of Henry B Brown, who had resigned In his letter of decimation he spoke
of his desire to complete the work going forward in Panama and the Philippines
But Taft, an honest man, admitted to himself what many journalists suspected, that
the lure of the Presidency governed his decision. Unlike Clay and Reed, he was to
discover that in the achievement as m the thwarted desire there would be the bitter
and the sour For a convincing analysis of his state of mind at this time, see Pringle,
Taft , vol. I, ch. xix.

1 Debs had contributed an article to Appeal to Reason, a syndicalist weekly pub-
lished at Girard, Kansas, by J. A. Wayland A copy of the article had been sent to
Roosevelt by Reverend L D. Crandall, of Filley, Nebraska. It is not available, but
the tone of Debs’ contemporary comments is clear in the quotation m No 3865.
Lacking legal authority, Moody took no action on Roosevelt’s request.

186

to Congress. 1 The Interstate Commerce Commission can do nothing except
mischief by trying to co-operate with Mr. Garfield in the matter covered by
him, because such co-operation would in reality be merely another name for
interference and an effective method for preventing either Mr. Garfield or
you from achieving the desired results. You have ample ground entirely apart
from Mr. Garfield’s work in which you can labor. You have, for instance,
the whole bituminous field, which he does not touch; and before you can
get through with that Mr. Garfield will have finished his report, and then
if you choose you can go over the ground that Mr. Garfield has covered. So
if you ‘have the slightest reason for thinking that this ground has not been
fully covered, you can supplement or traverse what he has done; but to
attempt to cover that ground now can accomplish nothing but evil.
Sincerely yours

3857 * to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 19, 1906

My dear Mr. Reid: The National Civic Federation has brought about the
formation of a Committee of twenty-one representative men to undertake
the investigation of and report upon the subject of municipal ownership,
both in the United States and abroad. This Committee, I am informed, is
composed of men representing all shades of opinion on this question, and
many different callings. They are equipped with a staff of experts to assist
in their investigations. A portion of the Committee has, during the last few
months, I am advised, accomplished its work throughout the United States
and the majority of its members are about to embark, on the 22nd of this
month to visit Europe. The matter of Governmental interest m public utili-
ties, whether municipal, state or national, has become a subject for serious
consideration with us. The work of the Commission, I am satisfied, will be
of exceptional value in the discussion of this subject, which is sure to become
general at an early day. It is, therefore, important that this Government
should do everything in its power to assist m the gathering of such important
statistical matter as this Commission is about to undertake, and I therefore
hope that you will do all in your power to further their researches and to
secure for them the facilities they need.

The names of the Committee are as follows:

1 Spurred by Senator Tillman, Congress had passed a joint resolution instructing the
ICC to investigate railroad discriminations and monopolies in coal and oil. Upon
signing the resolution, Roosevelt reported to Congress that he would delay the I.C.C.
investigation of the anthracite coal industry until the Bureau of Corporations com-
pleted an examination, already under way, of the entire coal industry. In the same
message he urged Congress to provide funds for the I.C.C. inquiries which were
beyond the commission’s budget and to clarify the immunity issue raised in the beef
trust case. See No. 3859

187

Melville E. Ingalls, (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. Cin. O.)

W. D. Mahon, (President, Association Street Railway Employees, Detroit,
Mich.)

Frank J. Goodnow, (Columbia University, New York.)

Walton Clark, (Third V.P.U.G.I.Co. Philadelphia, Pa.)

Edward W. Bemis, (Superintendent Water Works, Cleveland, O )

John H. Gray, (Northwestern University, Evanston, 111 .)

Timothy Healy, (President Int. Brotherhood Stationary Firemen, N. Y.)

Wm. J. Clark, (Foreign Manager, Gen. Electric Co. New York City.)

Frank Parsons, (President, National Public Ownership League, Boston.)

John R. Commons, (University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.)

J. W. Sullivan, (Editor, Clothing Trades Bulletin , New York.)

F. J. McNulty, (President, Int. Brotherhood Electrical Workers, Washing-
ton, D.C.)

Albert E. Winchester, (General Superintendent City of South Norwalk
Electric Works, South Norwalk, Conn.)

Charles L. Edgar, (President, Edison Electric and Illuminating Co. Boston,
Mass.)

Milo R. Malthie, (Franchise Expert, and former Editor Municipal Affairs ,
New York City.)

Edward A. Moffett, (Editor Bricklayer and Mason , Indianapolis, Ind.)

Sincerely yours

3858 • TO GEORGE WILLIAM ALGER RoOSevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 20, 1906

My dear Mr . Alger : 1 It may possibly amuse you to know that I have been
using your article on “Some Equivocal Rights of Labor” as a tract, handing
it around to some members of the Supreme Court, including the one man
who by his vote rendered possible the majority decision in the New York
bake shop case, 2 and also to Root, Taft and Knox. You have put exactly

1 George William Alger, New York City lawyer, authority on labor law, had just
published in the Atlantic Monthly his “Some Equivocal Rights of Labor ” This able
article demonstrated through case studies Alger’s argument “Stated as concretely as
possible, the principal difference between the working people and the courts lies in
the marked tendency of the courts to guarantee to the workman an academic and
theoretic liberty which he does not want, by denying him industrial rights to which
he thinks he is ethically entitled.” — Atlantic Monthly , 97:364-368 (March 1906).
a In Lochner v. New York , 198 U. S. 45 (1905), the Supreme Court by a five to four
decision had declared unconstitutional the New York statute providing that no em-
ployee should be required or permitted to work in bakeries more than sixty hours
a week. Speaking for the majority, Justice Peckham ruled that the law was an un-
reasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary interference with the right of the individual to
contract for his labor, a right protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment Chief Justice Fuller and Justices Brewer, Brown, and McKenna con-
curred In his opinion Peckham carefully observed that the decision of the court m
Holden v . Hardy , 169 U. S. 366 (1898)* did not govern. In that decision the court

188

what I most believe in as regards this subject into words, and I am sincerely
obliged to you. You may perhaps know that when in the New York Legisla-
ture I argued before Governor Cleveland for the tenement house cigar law
and (so he told me) secured his signature to it; and I felt it literally an outrage
when the court declared it unconstitutional. I hardly know whether to
feel more indignation at the kind of feeling which results m such decisions,
or on the other hand over the indiscriminate and untruthful abuse gathered
in magazines like the Cosmopolitan and aimed at every prominent man m
politics or industry, whether he does well or ill. Moreover, to a man who
believes as sincerely as I do in substituting genuine rights for these equivocal
rights of labor, it is a source of chagrin as well as of anger to see the actions
of labor unions in subscribing money to pay for the defense of the criminals
at the head of that criminal organization, the Western Federation of Miners
— an organization which beyond all question, and without regard to
whether the individuals accused are guilty, did serve as inciter to, and
accessory before the fact in, the assassination of ex-Governor Steunenberg. 3

It will be a real pleasure to see you whenever you can get to Washington.
Sincerely yours

3859 TO CHARLES B. MORRISON Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, March 22, 1906

My dear Mr. Morrison: Let me thank you for the excellent work you have
done in the beef packers suit. I cannot say publicly what I will say to you

had sustained a Utah law regulating the hours of labor in mines. There were legal
differences between the Utah and New York law, but to laymen the court seemed
to have reversed itself. Three members of the court — Fuller, Brown, and McKenna
— had voted to sustam the Utah law and to void the New York law. Peckham and
Brewer considered both laws unconstitutional. In the Lochner case, Justices White
and Day concurred in a dissent of Justice Harlan; Justice Holmes, in a separate dis-
sent, made his celebrated observation that “the Fourteenth Amendment does not
enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics

3 Harry Orchard, a member of the Western Federation of Miners, on December
30, 1905, murdered former Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho. After his arrest,
but before his trial and conviction, Orchard confessed this and other crimes. The
federation had never forgiven Steunenberg for his action six years earlier in invok-
ing martial law to terminate miners’ strikes and riots. Federation officials, Orchard
maintained, had ordered the murder.

On the basis of this confession, Idaho authorities arrested four officials of the
Western Federation* Charles H. Moyer, president, William D. Haywood, secretary
and treasurer; Jack Simpkins, and George A. Petnbone. Moyer, Haywood, and Petti-
bone were extradited from Colorado on February 17, 1906, and indicted by the
grand jury on March 9. Their attorneys delayed trial by a series of appeals, relating
to the extradition, to both state and federal courts. During this period a syndicalist
publicity campaign brought the case to national attention. In July 1907 Haywood was
acquitted. Later Pettibone was also acquitted. Orchard is still, in 1951, m jail. The
cases against the others were dropped. For a good account of the entire episode, see
that of the trial judge, Fremont Wood, The Introductory Chapter to the History
of the Trials of Moyer , Haywood, and Pettibone, and Harry Orchard (Caldwell,
Idaho, 1931).

privately, the charitable view to take of the Judge’s action is that he has lost
some of the powers of his mind; and I suppose that we must be charitable. 1
With regards, Sincerely yours

3860 • to james wilson Roosevelt Mss.

Private Washington, March 22, 1906

My dear Secretary Wilson : I have been thinking over your suggestion that
the investigation of the packing house matter m Chicago should be done
by someone under Commissioner Neill, so that there can be no possible
chance of somebody charging that the people making the investigation were
in any shape or way connected with the people accused. I think the idea an
excellent one and have accordingly directed Mr. Neill to take the matter up
and make a thorough investigation through his own agents, perhaps joining
with them some disinterested outsider of high character. I have sent Com-
missioner Neill a copy of this letter. Sincerely yours

3861 • TO FRANK. MORRISON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 22, 1906

My dear Mr. Morrison : 1 At our interview yesterday I requested you to
bring to my attention any specific cases of violation of the eight-hour law. 2

1 Judge J, Otis Humphrey, m his “Immunity Bath” decision, had declared the
Sherman Law inoperative in the Armour case. Subscribing to the brief of the packers’
attorneys, he maintained that the Department of Justice had relied on testimony
procured by the Bureau of Corporations in its earlier investigation of the beef trust.
According to the Fifth Amendment and the provisions of the act of 1903 establishing
the Bureau of Corporations, he continued, the officials who had virtually been made
to testify against themselves by the bureau were immune as a corporate body from
prosecution for the offenses they had explicitly or inferentially admitted.

Humphrey’s judgment of the facts was disputed. Although there was a strong
similarity between the bureau’s report and the department’s case, Garfield had denied
under oath that there had been any interchange of information between his depart-
ment and that of the Attorney General. Humphrey’s interpretation of the law out-
raged Roosevelt, who sent a sharp message to Congress. Describing the decision as
“a miscarriage of justice,” and “a farce,” the President recommended that Congress
“pass a declaratory act stating its real intention ” This, after considerable debate, was
accomplished in June by the enactment of a bill “to declare the true intent” of the
act of 1903. “Immunity,” the new law provided, “shall be extended only to a natural
person who, as a witness on the part of the Government in any proceeding . . . . ,
testifies on oath or in obedience to a subpoena produces relevant evidence ” — Con-
gressional Record , 59 Cong., 1 sess, pp. 5500, 9531.

1 Frank Morrison, since 1897 secretary of the American Federation of Labor
*Gompers, Morrison, and other delegates from the A. F. of L. had presented a
petition to Roosevelt at the White House on March 21. The petition sought passage
of a law to prevent the use of injunctions against labor unions, better enforcement of
the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the extension of the federal eight-hour law on
government projects including the Panama Canal. After hearing the petition, the
President stated that he favored an anti-inj unction law but did not think that Con-
gress would pass one. The Chinese exclusion problem, he said, was under control

I 9°

I would like you to call my attention as soon as possible to any of these
complaints, and I shall at once forward them to Mr. Neill of the Labor
Bureau and direct him to investigate them and report direct to me. Further-
more, I shall hereafter direct all departments having control of work as to
which this law applies to notify the Department of Commerce and Labor
when the work is begun, and I shall notify the Secretary of the Department
of Commerce and Labor whenever such notification reaches him, himself to
notify the head of the Labor Bureau, whose business it will then be to take
cognizance of any complaint made as to violations of this law, to investigate
the same, and to report to me.

As you know, I not only sympathize with you on the eight-hour law,
but I intend as a matter of course to see that that law is efficiently enforced.
My belief is that you will find that with Commissioner Neill personally super-
vising the enforcement of the law all just complaints will be met. Sincerely
yours

3862 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 22, 1906

My dear Mr. Moody: You know the interest I take in the proper enforce-
ment of the alien contract labor law. There has been a rather remarkable
decision rendered by our good friend Judge Tayler in Ohio in the Aultman
Company case at Canton, Ohio. An appeal has been taken by District
Attorney Sullivan. Will you not see to it that the appeal is pushed along as
rapidly as possible? 1 * * *

In the matter of injunctions, I would like to call your attention to the
injunction, copy of which is enclosed, granted in the case of a recent strike
in Philadelphia. It is alleged to me by Mr. Frey, the editor of the Iron
Moulders 5 Journal , whom I should like to have you see personally and go
over this case with him, that this injunction is altogether too sweeping and
works a genuine hardship upon the labor people. Will you give me your
views upon k? My own theory has always been that while any attempt at

An eight-hour law for the Canal Zone was impossible, he concluded, but he promised
to enforce the eight-hour day on any American project where the A. F. of L. found
it violated. Roosevelt kept his promise By mid-summer various suits had been filed,
including two of considerable importance against the contractors building the Con-
necticut Avenue bridge in Washington, D. C., and those constructing the govern-
ment dry dock at Charleston, South Carolina.

1 For two years the Iron Moulders’ Union had been smng the Aultman Company of
Canton, Ohio, for alleged violation of the Alien Contract Labor Law. Roosevelt and

Frank Sargent had encouraged this action. In February, however, the federal district

judge, Robert W. Tayler, instructed the jury to brmg in a verdict favoring the com-
pany. He maintained that aliens who had worked for a period in the United States

became part of the American labor supply and w T ere, therefore, not amenable under

the Alien Contract Labor Law. United States District Attorney John J. Sullivan at
once appealed this decision, holding that it rendered the act meamngless In spite of
Roosevelt’s request for haste, the appeal took its place on an already crowded docket.

violence, or coercion by threat of violence, must be put down m the strong-
est manner; yet on the other hand, it is only right that the labor union
people in the event of a strike should be given full liberty to try to convince
by legitimate and peaceable arguments the men who are taking their places
that they ought not thus to act. 2 Sincerely yours

3863 • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MsS.

Washington, March 26, 1906

To the Secretary of the Interior: I am not satisfied as to the handling of the
case against the Kansas cattlemen and homesteaders who have been indicted
for illegal fencing and whose case comes up for trial on April 26th next.
It appears that some of these men are well-to-do cattlemen, while others are
living on land which they have pre-empted or homesteaded, with small
herds of cattle such as the small men in the ranch business own; that some
of them, as for instance the Dean brothers, are former cowboys, of whose
investment in cattle and land every dollar is represented by what they have
saved from the wages they earned monthly while serving as cowboys. In
the circular from the Department of the Interior, General Land Office, ap-
proved by you January 29, 1904, it is explicitly stated that in the event of
any charge or complaint about illegal fencing the special agent will give
written notice to the parties concerned as to such unlawful mclosure, “advis-
ing them that it is charged they are violating the law relating thereto, and
that they will be allowed sixty days from notice within which to remove
such inclosure or obstruction and that in default thereof the matter will be
submitted to the United States Attorney for prosecution under the law.”
This is of course a notice by you to your agents and does not alter the illegal
character of the act or serve as a bar to prosecution of those who have per-
formed the act But it does impose a moral obligation upon your Department
not to prosecute any man who has any knowledge of this circular without
giving him the sixty days’ warning. The special agents of the Land Office
are acting under this circular at the present moment If at the present
moment they find any man having illegally fenced ground, they give him
the sixty days’ notice before presenting the case for prosecution. It certainly
seems wrong for the Department to differentiate this case from all others
and to act m it without such notice being given, unless there is some
explanation of such action which has never been presented to me. It is
alleged to me that the action was taken by a Mr. Green, an employee of the

3 John P Frey, editor of the Iron Moulders ’ Journal, had defined dispassionately the
complicated matters at issue between the National Founders’ Association and the
I.M.U. in Philadelphia. These included differences over wages, piecework scales,
union recognition, and the union shop The strike, begun primarily because the
N F.A. abandoned what had been a rather enlightened labor policy, was being broken
by the effective use of injunctions, lockouts, and black lists in a community where
the iron moulders were still not fully organized.

192

Department not connected with the Land Office, and presumably in ig-
norance of the circular. No explanation has been given to me as to why
Mr. Green should have acted in disregard of, or without full knowledge of,
the practice of the Land Office m this matter Unless there is explanation m
addition to any that has been given, I feel that the Government’s action m
this case subjects it rightly to the accusation of proceeding without regard
to the rights to which, through its own course, it had given the men reason
to believe they were entitled At the earliest moment I wish a full answer to
all the questions raised m this letter of mine I wish a specific answer as to
whether it can be shown that any notice was sent to the men accused, and
a specific answer as to why Mr. Green, or whoever the responsible man
was, asked for action by the District Attorney if it was the case that such
notice had not been given. I wish to know if there is anything to offset the
testimony of the men accused that agents of the Department informed them
that they would not have to remove the fences until they received notice,
nor until within sixty days thereafter.

The fact that the fences have not been removed since the indictment has
no bearing whatever on the case. The lawyers of the parties implicated state
that their clients were anxious to remove the fences, but that they (the
lawyers) advised them against doing so because they believed that there
w r as a ground of defense for them; and of course the action of the lawyers
was from their standpoint entirely proper, as the removal of the fences
would have weakened their clients’ case. 1

3864 TO CORNELIUS NEWION BLISS Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 26, 1906

Ady dear Mr, Bhss: I hope you have not been bothered by these outrageous
assaults upon you in connection with the campaign contributions. 1 I have
felt the keenest indignation as I have read them. No upright and honest man
who knows anything of the real facts will attack you, and every thinkmg
man knows that you stand as pre-eminent among the men of the very type
upon whom all chance of disinterested and effective work for decent politics
depends, for you are the most conspicuous representative of that class — as
yet, I am thankful to say, considerable m numbers — whose members are
willing at great personal inconvenience and sacrifice to give their time and
money to the service of a cause, the triumph of w T hich represents not one
particle of advantage to themselves personally save in so far as they share

1 Hitchcock answered that no notice had been sent to the indicted cattlemen He told
the President, however, that John C Pollock, the district judge at Topeka, had ruled
that, as the lawyeis and clients had conspired to ignore the fencing laws, no notice
was due them. Interior Department investigators in Kansas had discovered over
100,000 acres of illegally enclosed public land

1 Relying upon the testimony given to the Armstrong Committee, the Democratic
press had re\ ived Judge Parker’s charges of the campaign of 1904.

193

with the rest of our eighty millions of people m the credit that comes from
honorable and efficient conduct of the affairs of the people as a whole. A
free government can only exist if good citizens at election time are given
the chance to express their views, and if the cause of good government has
the arguments on its behalf presented fairly through the press, on the
stump, and m pamphlets, no less than through private conversation. This of
course means that there must be organization, and when the organization
covers three million square miles of territory, inhabited by eighty millions
of people, and when it is desired to elect a President, the members of the
House of Representatives, and the Legislatures which elect United States
Senators, there must be expense. So far from its being true that there is
any lavish and unusual expenditure of money at an American election such
as the national election in 1904, the reverse is the fact. I was interested m
comparing the figures which show that the expenditures m the Presidential
election in 1904 were less than the expenditures at the last preceding election
for Members of Parliament in the British Isles, although there is there a very
stringent “corrupt practices act,” and although the voting constituency in
the British Isles is so much smaller. Not one successful attempt has been
made or can be made to show that a dollar of this amount was spent im-
properly by the sanction of any responsible person, nor indeed has the
attempt been made to show that it has been spent improperly at all, while
it is not only true that there has come to me no suggestion that the giving of
contributions entitles any giver to any consideration beyond his fellows, but
it is furthermore true that on a number of occasions (as, for instance, in con-
nection with the tobacco interests and in connection with a wealthy man
who wished to be considered for the position of Minister to Belgium)
contributions were immediately declined when it was found either that
the donor hoped for some favor, or even that the Government was about to
take some action which affected the donor or donors; while as soon as it
was known that certain big financiers, as well as influential politicians like
Mr. Odell, had urged the appointment of James H. Hyde as Ambassador to
France, Mr. Cortelyou, and I believe you also, protested strongly, and the
financiers m question at once accepted my explanation of why it would be
* impossible to put so young and untried a man in any such position, and
abandoned all effort to press him.

As I understand, the amount of money raised in the 1904 campaign was
about one-half as large as that raised in the 1896 campaign; it is publicly
stated that it was but one half as large as the amount raised for President
Cleveland’s campaign m 1892. This, however, is aside from the point, which
is that the money was spent legitimately in legitimate campaign expenses and
that no pretense has been made to the contrary; and that it was contributed
freely by men who did not ask and who never have received one particle of
consideration in the shape of legislation or administrative act as a reward for
having so contributed — exactly as no man has been in any way dis-

194

criminated against for not having contributed. Mr. Frick was one of my
staunchest allies; Messrs. Ryan and Belmont two of our most resolute op-
ponents. Not only has no single act been done by the administration or by
Congress which could be construed by its most frantic opponent into
favoring the financial interests of the one side or discriminating against the
financial interests of the other, but I do not believe that even the most
mendacious critic would assert such to be the case. There is a peculiar
baseness in the hypocrisy of the men who now attack you for receiving
contributions in 1896, when in that year it was known to everyone who
knew anything at all in New York that the big corporations of the highest
repute and standing were contributing and were frantically applauded for
doing so.

Just before the campaign closed Mr. Cortelyou issued an address in
which he spoke as follows:

The campaign has been conducted with a much smaller fund then any presi-
dential campaign for the past twelve years. The fund this year, although made
up of contributions from more than four thousand persons, has been about one
half as large as the Republican fund when President McKinley was elected in
1896 and about one half as large as the Democratic fund when President Cleveland
was elected in 1892. Every part of this fund has come from voluntary contribu-
tions made without demand, importunity or pressure; and without any agreement,
pledge, promise, assurance or understanding, express or implied, regarding the
policy or the action of the administration, or looking to any benefit or advantage
to any contributor except the benefit which will come to all business and to all
our people from the continuance of Republican policies and Republican admin-
istration.

This described with exactness the course you and he had followed; it was
in every respect right; and if the campaign were to be waged over again I
should have nothing to say to both of you save to tell you to conduct the
campaign in the precise manner in which you actually did conduct it. That
all the contributors were worthy no man can say, any more than it is
possible to say that all those are worthy who are contributing to the Red
Cross fund for the Japanese sufferers which is being collected under my
authority. But in one case as in the other the immense majority of those
contributing were and are worthy men influenced by worthy motives.
Indeed, considering the action taken by the administration in the various
suits against the Beef Trust, the Tobacco Trust, against the railroad com-
panies in the matter of rebates, etc , etc., and in view of the course we have
pursued throughout in all corporation matters, it ought to be wholly un-
necessary so much as to allude to any allegation that any contribution from
any source has been allowed to influence in the slightest degree any adminis-
trative act of mine, or any legislation I have recommended, since I have
been President. I have already stated that no attempt to influence me in such
matters has ever been made by anyone connected with the campaign.

So much for the general situation. Now, as to you personally. The two

l 95

hardest positions and the most important m any political campaign are those
of Chairman and Treasurer of the National Campaign Committee. You
accepted the treasurership in 1896, in 1900, and finally, with great reluctance,
again in 1904, at my repeated and urgent request. Not merely is it true that
you wanted nothing and would take nothing for yourself, but during my
entire time as President you have come to me for no favor, and have merely,
when I asked you, been willing to give me counsel and advice, just as Root
gave it when he was out of the Cabinet; just as President Nicholas Murray
Butler, of Columbia University, gives it, as Albert Shaw gives it, and as
President Wheeler, of the University of California, gives it, as many other
citizens in private life give it. In other words, you have rendered the highest
public service, not only absolutely without any kind of reward, but at the
cost of great personal inconvenience. For this you have had not one particle
of acknowledgment, except the sense of being one of those men whose best
effort has always been at the command of the nation, and whose public
service has been as efficient as it was faithful and disinterested; and you
have won the lasting respect, admiration and affection of all those who know
you intimately, and especially of Your attached friend

3865 TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, March 26, 1906

To the Attorney General: As you know, the Governor of Idaho has asked
us to be ready to aid the State authorities by the use of Federal troops in
the event of their being unable to keep order and suppress armed resistance
to the action of the State executive and of the State courts in the matter of
these cases against Moyer and Haywood. We have answered him setting
forth the Constitutional methods by which any such request must be made,
and of course further stating that if any such request is made it will be at
once granted and order maintained. In view of the extraordinary interest
attaching to the case and the widespread commotion that has been caused,
I wish very much that you could instruct the District Attorney to forward
to you, confidentially, as full a report as possible upon certain phases of it.
That Haywood and Moyer have been at the head of a labor organization,
the members of which have practiced every form of violence, including as-
sassination, during a period extending over many years, is not to be disputed.
That Haywood and Moyer themselves have been guilty of language and
conduct which amounted to incitement to assassination m the past is also
not to be disputed. Furthermore, that ex-Governor Steunenberg was assas-
sinated for conscientiously doing his duty in putting a stop to the murders
and other infamies perpetrated by the Coeur d’Alene rioters, who were the
associates and henchmen of these men, is, I am afraid, unquestioned. But of
course this in no way affects the duty of the State authorities and of the
Federal authorities, if it should ever happen that we had any power in the

1 96

matter, to see that exact justice is done these men. There must be no con-
donation of lawlessness on our part, even if the lawlessness takes the form
of an effort to avenge the wrongs committed by the lawlessness of others.
The sole question as regards Haywood and Moyer must be the question
whether or not they can be shown to be guilty of this particular act, and
their legal rights must be as carefully safeguarded as those of any other
men would be. It is alleged that they were extradited from Colorado in a
manner which amounted to a betrayal of their legal rights. I should like
to have the District Attorney of Colorado, and if necessary the District
Attorney of Idaho, give me such information as they can on this point. I
should like to get from the District Attorney of Idaho any information
that he can obtain as to whether or not there has been the slightest dispo-
sition shown by the authorities in Idaho to act toward these men in an
unfair or improper manner, or to deny them their legal rights. On the
other hand, I should also like to know whether there is any symptom of
a miscarriage of justice in their favor. The action of so many labor unions
in sending money for their defense; and above all the intemperate violence
with which socialistic or labor papers like that of Debs • — and I am sorry
to say, some labor organizations — have insisted, without any knowledge
of the facts, upon treating these men as martyrs to the cause of labor, have
unquestionably resulted in tremendous pressure being brought to bear upon
the authorities of Idaho to discharge or acquit them whether guilty or
innocent.

I do not at all like the action of the Governor of Idaho in his recent
address to the labor unions of the United States, as reported in the Wash-
ington Times of Saturday evening last, m which he promises to allow a
delegation of them to meet Orchard and Adams 1 personally and hear the
stories they have told to the State’s attorneys and detectives. Such a course
seems to me as improper as if when we had evidence against individuals
connected with the beef trust or any other trust we should allow other
corporation chiefs, with their lawyers, to come and hear and perhaps cross-
examine the witnesses of the Government before the trial in court. These
men should be proceeded against just exactly as we proceed against any
big corporation man whom we find violating the law. They should not be
treated with greater vindictiveness, nor, on the other hand, should any
more favor be shown them; and the action of any labor union in standing
by them without finding out whether they are guilty or innocent merits
the same severe reprobation with which we would visit the action of any
capitalist who would stand by any other accused capitalist without regard
to his guilt or innocence. I am well aware that this is not the avowed atti-
tude of certain of the labor unions, who have said that they merely wish

Orchard’s confession accused Steve Adams of complicity in several crimes, al-
though not in Steunenberg’s murder. Arrested and extradited from Oregon, Adams

was later tried and freed on all charges against him.

197

to furnish means for seeing whether these men are or are not innocent;
they, however, profess to distrust the action of the State authorities and
the courts in the matter, and the action taken by many of the unions does
in effect amount to exercising a certain duress on the courts or on the
Government authorities, as is evident from the proclamation of the Gover-
nor above quoted — an action which in my opinion shows an unwise and
improper yielding on his part to such clamor. Moreover, in the paper of
Debs, above referred to, the appeal is distinctly made for revolution; the
crime against Steunenberg is condoned, it being stated m effect that when
he was murdered he only met his deserts; and there is a distinct refusal to
allow the consideration by the courts of the guilt or innocence of Moyer
and Haywood, the statement being in effect that the labor men will insist
that they are innocent without any regard to the evidence. Any such course
inevitably means anarchy and chaos; and action, whether intended or not,
which increases the strength of such an element amounts to an incitement
to anarchy and chaos. The President of the American Flint Glass Workers’
Union, Thomas W. Rowe, m speaking on this subject, used the following
expressions:

If the capitalistic class, as it is represented in Idaho and Montana, the seat of
the Lawson-Heinze copper war, persist m its attempt to send Haywood and
Moyer to the gallows, I, for one, am in favor of loading ourselves with dynamite,
proceeding to Boise City and blowing that jail to smithereens, and, for that matter,
removing anything which stands between justice and the workingman. If you
laboring men will permit a brother worker, who stands for all that unionism
represents, to go to his death in this manner, falsely charged, as I believe him
to be, judging him from the long association I have had with him m labor’s behalf,
you need the noose yourselves. If Gompers and Mitchell were as true to their
sworn mterests as Haywood has been to his, this infamous, diabolical scheme of
legalized murder would never be attempted. We must thwart this execution and
give them to understand that if they murder our pickets we will murder them.

Eugene V. Debs, in his paper, wrote as follows:

Those gory-beaked vultures are to pluck out the heart of resistance to their
tyranny and robbery, that labor may be stark naked at their mercy.

Charles Moyer and Wm. D. Haywood, of the Western Federation of Miners,
and their official colleagues — men, all of them, and every inch of them — are
charged with the assassination of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho,
who simply reaped what he had sown, as a mere subterfuge to pounce upon them
in secret, rush them out of the state by special train, under heavy guard, clap
them into the penitentiary, convict them upon the purchased, perjured testimony
of villams, and then strangle them to death with the hangman’s noose.

It is a foul plot; a damnable conspiracy, a hellish outrage.

The governors of Idaho and Colorado say they have the proof to convict.
They are brazen falsifiers and venal villains, the miserable tools of the mine
owners who, themselves, if anybody does, deserve the gibbet.

Moyer, Haywood and their comrades had no more to do with the assassination
of 'Steunenberg than I had; the charge is a ghastly he, a criminal calumny and is
only an excuse to murder men who are too rigidly honest to betray their trust
and too courageous to succumb to threat and intimidation.

198

Labor leaders that cringe before the plutocracy and do its bidding are apoth-
eosized; those that refuse must be foully murdered.

Personally and intimately do I know Moyer, Haywood, Pettibone, St. John
and their official co-workers, and I will stake my life on their honor and integrity;
and that is precisely the crime for which, according to the words of the slimy
“sleuth” who “worked up the case” against them, “they shall never leave Idaho
alive”

Well, by the gods, if they don’t the governors of Idaho and Colorado and
their masters from Wall Street, New York, to the Rocky Mountains had better
prepare to follow them.

Nearly twenty years ago the capitalist tyrants put some innocent men to
death for standing up for labor.

They are now going to try it again. Let them dare!

There have been twenty years of revolutionary education, agitation and
organization since the Haymarket tragedy, and if an attempt is made to repeat
it, there will be a revolution and I will do all in my power to precipitate it.

# * # *

Moyer and Hayward are our comrades, staunch and true, and if we do not
stand by them to the shedding of the last drop of blood in our veins we are dis-
graced forever and deserve the fate of cringing cowards.

* * # *

If they attempt to murder Moyer, Haywood and their brothers, a million
revolutionists, at least, will meet them with guns.

* # # #

Let them dare to execute their devilish plot and every state in this union will
resound with the tramp of revolution.

Get ready, comrades, for action f No other course is left to the working class.
Their courts are closed to us except to pronounce our doom. To enter their
courts is simply to be mulcted of our meagre means and bound hand and foot;
to have our eyes plucked out by the vultures that fatten upon our misery.

# # * #

A special revolutionary convention of the proletariat at Chicago, or some
other central point, would be m order, and, if extreme measures are required,
a general strike could be ordered and industry paralyzed as a preliminary to a
general uprising.

So far as the unions are anxious only to see that exact justice is done
these men, that they are given their full legal rights and not condemned
unless proved guilty of this specific act, they are entitled to the cordial co-
operation of all just and fair-minded citizens. So far as by any action, or by
murderous and treasonable language such as that quoted above from Rowe
and Debs, they tend to bring pressure to bear upon the State authorities and
the courts, to obstruct the course of justice, and to render it difficult to
convict the men if guilty, they are equally without stint to be condemned;
and anything the federal authorities can do, m either event, to further the
cause of justice, is to be done.

P S. Please have the Denver District Attorney report to me at the earliest
possible moment whether there is any reason to believe that the rights of

199

Moyer and Haywood were disregarded at the time of extraditing them
from Colorado to Idaho.

3 866 to thomas o’gorman Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, March 27, 1906

My dear Bishop O' Gorman: 1 I have your letter of the 24th instant. I am as
sorry as you are about those publications concerning the Storer removal.
The entire fault lies with Storer and Mrs. Storer. The latter has talked
everywhere with extraordinary indiscretion, I am afraid Archbishop Keane,
among others, has not been quite as discreet as he should have been m re-
peating what she has told him; I gather this from a conversation he had
with Bonaparte last fall. From the White House and the State Department
the only announcement made was that Storer had been discontented at not
receiving a promotion; and that he had declined to answer certain letters,
and even this was in private talk to our friends, for neither the Secretary
of State nor I made or authorized anyone to make any public statement
beyond the mere fact that Storer had been recalled. The only papers that
printed the story bringing m Archbishop Ireland’s name were papers hostile
to the administration, so far as I have seen. The Sim, for instance, knew the
facts through Mr. Laffan, who was with Storer in Egypt; but the Sun did
not print them. The Tribune had heard of the facts, but I got them to
keep them quiet. For all the difficulties to Archbishop Ireland that may
come from this incident, Mrs. Storer is purely and solely responsible, save
as Mr. Storer shares the responsibility with her. You probably hardly re-
alize the wide comment in Catholic circles here in the East that there has
been over her activity, while wife of the Ambassador, on behalf of Arch-
bishop Ireland, this comment coming in ecclesiastical circles from the high-
est down. I will give you curious instances of it at any time you are in
Washington. Sincerely yours

3867 • TO LINDSAY DENISON Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 28, 1906

My dear Denison. 1 I have your letter of the 26th instant. I am getting hot
about both Shonts and Stevens. They ought to see that your article is a
1 Thomas O’Gorman, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Lindsay Denison, a journalist on the staff of Everybody’s Magazine , had sent
Roosevelt the proof of his “Making Good at Panama,” Everybody’s Magazine,
1 4’ 579-590 (May 1906) Denison had inspected the work at the Isthmus with a
patriotic pride which his article reflected. He praised particularly Gorgas and
Stevens. On various matters, however, he was quietly critical. He found that the fore-
men and superintendents were, m general, incompetent, that the incidence of petty
graft and inefficiency in the railroad was high, that the management of the Pay
Department v^as “stupid and inelastic.” These criticisms Denison tempered m his
footnotes, observing that since he had first written, Roosevelt had taken steps to
correct the defects

200

splendid article. Whether there is some single point as to which you were
wrong or not, I do not care a rap. The general effect of your article is
simply admirable, and they ought to know it and see it and I am surprised
that they do not. Sincerely yours

3868 • TO ANDREW CARNEGIE Roosevelt MSS.

Private Washington, March 28, 1906

My dear Mr. Carnegie: I thank you for your letter, received through Sec-
retary Root. I am delighted that you feel in sympathy with my attitude
in the rate legislation. To my mind, the big corporations who are opposing
this measure and find their representatives in Senator Aldrich and others,
are making a very serious mistake, not only from their own standpoint but
from the standpoint of all those who are against the growth of a hysterical
radicalism or socialism in the country. Sincerely yours

3869 • TO GEORGE EDMUND FOSS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 28, 1906

My dear Mr. Foss: I am delighted to see that you have decided to provide
for the building of one big battleship. As long as we are to have but one
battleship authorized this year, it should be of the very best possible type. 1
Events show that the most efficient battleship is the largest one, carrying
probably eight very heavy guns, and perhaps more. For the highest type of
modern fighting ship a very large displacement is evidently necessary. I
congratulate you from the standpoint of the navy upon what you have ac-
complished. Sincerely yours

3870 * to thomas dillon o’brien Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, March 29, 1906

My dear Mr. O'Brien: I received your letter and had Mr. Drake comment
on it. 1 He agrees entirely with you. I shall back your bill up m its entirety,

1 On April 28, 1906, Foss introduced a bill providing for “a ship that shall be the
largest battleship in all the world.” The phrasing of the bill possesses, beyond its
pleasant flamboyance, another claim to the attention of historians. For the first time
the tonnage of a naval vessel of the United States was not specified m an appropria-
tion bill by Congress. Economy-minded congressmen, led by Representative Tawney,
then chairman of the Appropriations Committee, immediately attacked the bill as an
effort of the Administration to compete with other nations “for the most glittering
and expensive toys” These congressmen were joined both by the pacifist elements
m Congress, led by Bartholdt of Missouri, and by the Democrats. Foss’s bill, how-
ever, was passed by the House and subsequently by the Senate In 1910 the Delaware,
as fast and as heavily gunned as the Dreadnought , was commissioned. The ship,
however, contained defects in design that were the subject of a special conference
called by Roosevelt to meet at Newport

1 Superintendent Thomas E Drake of the Department of Insurance m the District of
Columbia had approved the proposals of the Chicago insurance convention, called

201

for I hope I need hardly say, Mr. O’Brien, that I have already learned par-
ticularly to value your judgment in this matter. I have asked Mr. Drake to
tell me any way in which I can forward the bill. I will submit it with a
cordial endorsement from me to Congress, if it is so desired. Sincerely yours

3871 - to John h. winder Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 31, 1906

My dear Sir ; 1 I have received from you a telegram running as follows:

I have the honor of transmitting to you the following resolution, passed by
coal operators assembled in this city:

WHEREAS, the coal operators and the representatives of the miners of the
States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, having met in Indi-
anapolis, at the suggestion of the President of the United States, for the purpose
of endeavoring to agree upon a scale of wages and mining conditions for a period
beginning April first, 1906, and the parties having been unable to reach an agree-
ment; and having adjourned sine die; be it

RESOLVED that we, coal operators of the State of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio
and western Pennsylvania, representing at least 80 per cent of the tonnage in the
territory involved — who have felt, and still feel, unable to pay any advance in
wages at this time — do hereby propose that the President of the United States
appoint a Commission to investigate all matters which, in the judgment of such
Commission, have an important bearing upon, or relate to, the scale of wages
which should be paid all classes of labor in and about the coal mines of the terri-
tory herein involved, and other conditions now imposed and insisted upon by the
United Mine Workers of America. Such Commission to report to the President
of the United States its findings of facts, together with its recommendations. Be
it further

RESOLVED that such Commission have power to administer oaths and
compel attendance of witnesses.

John H. Winder,
Chairman.

I have also received from Messrs. Mitchell and Robbms a telegram run-
ning as follows:

Respondmg to your suggestion we have fulfilled our highest duties as citizens
of our country by advocating a bituminous coal scale on a reasonable compromise.
We understand that a telegram has been sent to you tonight, purporting to speak

by Governor John A Johnson and Commissioner O’Brien of Minnesota. As a first
step toward uniformity of laws on insurance practices in the states, the convention
recommended a new insurance code for the District of Columbia Roosevelt in April
referred this proposed code, with Drake’s endorsement, to Congress, urging that it
be adopted “to prevent the possibility of the repetition of such scandals as those
.... disclosed by the Armstrong Committee.” None of the bills designed to accom-
plish this end, however, were reported out of committee

1 John H. Winder, president of the Sunday Creek Coal Company, chairman of that
group of bituminous coal operators which was against any raise in miners’ pay.
Aware of this opposition, Robbms had not invited these operators to the caucus at
which the moderates resolved to accept the compromise terms.

202

for eighty per cent of the bituminous tonnage. That telegram does not represent
the real facts. At least one half of the total tonnage in western Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois is produced by operators who are willing to pay the com-
promise scale.

John Mitchell,
Francis L. Robbins.

To appoint a commission with the powers you request would necessitate
action by Congress. As yet I am not prepared to say what action I person-
ally can take in the matter. Sincerely yours

3872 • TO THEODORE PERRY SHONTS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 31, 1906

My dear Mr. Shonts: I have your letter of the 30th instant. It would be an
opportune time to take action if I could take it effectively; but I have no
power in the premises at all except as public opinion gives it to me, and
public opinion is all at sea. It never becomes aroused in a case like this until
the danger is imminent, when it is far harder to act than it was originally.
For instance, the request of the operators is that I should appoint a com-
mission which I have no power to appoint and which would have to be ap-
pointed by act of Congress, for only thus could they be empowered to
administer oaths and summon witnesses. In the next place, a large minority
of the operators apparently believe that the compromise plan between the
operators and miners, to which as their representative Robbins had agreed,
should be put through. Finally, the miners have not asked for any such
commission, and I should hesitate to appoint it unless the miners did ask
for it. All of this means that as yet the situation is not such that I can see
my way clear to act. I shall have to watch developments.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

3873 • TO QUENTIN ROOSEVELT RoOSevelt MSS.

Washington, April 1, 1906

Darling Quenty-quee: Slipper and the kittens are doing finely. I think the
kittens will be big enough for you to pet and have some satisfaction out of
when you get home, although they will be pretty young still. I miss you
all dreadfully, and the house feels big and lonely and full of echoes with
nobody but me in it; and I do not hear any small scamps running up and
down the hall just as hard as they can; or hear their voices while I am
dressing; or suddenly look out through the windows of the office at the
tennis ground and see them racing over it or playing in the sand box. I
love you very much. Your loving father

203

3874 ' to kermit roosevelt Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, April 1, 1906

Dear Kermit: I have finished the first volume of Phineas Fin n and am much
obliged to you for putting me on the track of reading it. Of course I am
more interested in the political part of it than you would be, because I am
always comparing it (the life in England 40 years ago) with political life
here, both as regards the points of likeness and the points of unlikeness. So
far, m the first volume, it struck me that the good people m their love affairs
are of rather tepid nature, m fact I think frogs would seem warm-blooded
by comparison. I have just finished the chapter in which Phineas rides Bone-
breaker and Lord Chilton came to grief. Twenty years ago I used to ride
to hounds quite a good deal myself, but I never rode as bad a horse as
Phineas did; and I am afraid Lord Chilton would have stigmatized most of
the horses I rode as “arm chairs.”

The day you went away I had several people to lunch, including two
foreigners, an Englishman and a German, who were here on their way to
Alaska to shoot big game, the Englishman being an officer of the Life Guards
and aide-de-camp of the King. I took them on a good tough scramble down
Rock Creek in the afternoon, which was rainy. If they are going to do
much mountain sheep or mountain goat hunting, they will have to improve
in their climbing; for they were by no means good on the rocks, and as
they were out of condition they were not particularly good in anything by
the time we reached the end of the walk. I could not help laughing to my-
self as I thought how slow I seemed to walk compared to you and Ted,
and yet how fast these men seemed to think I was walking. (Mr. Loeb has
interjected a remark that he knows you can walk fast because he has walked
all over Boston with you at night 1 )

The political pot is boiling frantically, which is another way of saying
that the fight on the rate bill is growing hot. I cannot tell how it will come
out yet; but inasmuch as the Republican leaders have tried to betray me and
it, I am now trying to see if I cannot get it through in the form I want by
the aid of some fifteen or twenty Republicans added to most of the Demo-
crats. 1 Your loving father

1 Reacting to Aldrich’s opposition, Roosevelt, with Allison’s assistance, had begun
to collaborate with Democratic leaders. The President hoped to form a coalition that
could carry the Hepburn Bill with amendments similar to Long’s on judicial
review, and such changes as Bailey’s on injunctions would have given precise defini-
tion to the ambiguous sections of the House’s version, thus strengthening the au-
thority conferred by the measure on the I.C.C. The efforts to form an alliance,
auspiciously begun, soon collapsed. Many southern Democrats sided with Aldrich
on the question of judicial review while he proved continually capable of disciplin-
ing his opposition forces. On the other hand, those negotiating for an alliance,
representing as they did the wide spectrum of political opinion between Tillman
and Allison, could not reach an agreement on specific proposals. Their failure
provoked the President to revert to his ongmal position of favoring the House
bill, see Numbers 3882, 3883, 3884, 3893, 3914, 3917

20 4

3875 * TO THOMAS COLLIER PLATT

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, April 1, 1906

My dear Senator: Yesterday, on the assurance of Congressman Wadsworth
that you desired Mr. Merritt to be appointed collector, I announced that I
would make the appointment. Various other people had been to me assuring
me of your desires m a way that I accepted as messages from you. At that
time I announced the appointment of Mr. Barnes as postmaster to succeed
Merritt, on the recommendation of Postmaster General Cortelyou. At that
time I did not know that you would take any interest in the appointment of
postmaster at Washington or I should certainly have waited to hear from
you. 1 Sincerely yours

3876 • to Leonard wood Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, April 2, 1906

Dear Leo??ard: I am relieved to get your three letters, in the first place be-
cause I am now satisfied about your health, and in the second place because
it is comforting to see how well you grapple with everything. I do not
believe there will be any expedition to China, but I wanted to be sure that
if it was needed we would not be unprepared. I entirely agree with you
as to the need of sending ten thousand, (and if possible, indeed, I should
personally say fifteen thousand) men if we had to go against Canton. It
would be an act of utter folly to underestimate our foes, who would be-
yond all comparison be more formidable than they showed themselves m
1900. I also agree with you as to the desirability of using some Filipino
troops, if possible, under such circumstances. And finally, I think you are
entirely right about the desertions. I congratulate you upon the way you
made your preparations. 1

I am obliged to you for giving me the information about Pollock. Put
him m prison if you can, and let me know if you hear of anything where I
can interfere to prevent his repeating any iniquity. With love to Mrs. Wood,
Faithfully yours

1 Roosevelt had at last arranged the Washington, D. C., post office to his own satis-
faction by appointing Benjamin F. Barnes, Loeb’s assistant, postmaster m place of
Platt’s genially incompetent friend, John A. Merritt. At the same time the President
made Merritt collector of customs at Niagara Falls, New York.

1 On February 21 Wood had written Roosevelt that everything was ready “to move
5,000 troops on the shortest notice.” Wood added that “I of course want to go in
command of this expedition ” In an earlier letter Wood had written the President that
desertions occurred because “we do not play the game seriously.” A soldier’s instruc-
tions, Wood felt, should be “full of field problems,” “night marches and attacks,” not
“six months of walking around the parade ground.”

205

3 8 77 * TO ARTHUR HENDERSON SMITH Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, April 3, 1906

My dear Dr. Smith : 1 Your very kind and pleasant letter has come. I agree
with all you say and if we can adopt the policy you recommend I shall
heartily favor it. I had been in doubt whether to try to use the indemnity
as you suggest, merely because I hesitated as to whether the Chinese would
not interpret it as an act of weakness; but I am inclined to take your judg-
ment in the matter and shall do so unless very strong reasons to the con-
trary are presented. I will take it up with Root forthwith. Meanwhile I need
hardly say to you that I can in no way control the action of Congress. But
what I can do by executive action and by co-operation with outsiders such
as the authorities of Harvard, Yale and the other colleges, I shall do. 2 Sin-
cerely yours

3878 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Washington, April 6, 1906

Dear Cabot: Taft feels very strongly and I feel very strongly that any ac-
tion about the Philippine tariff bill prior to the final vote on the rate bill,
or certainly prior to the vote by the Senate on the rate bill, could only
result in damage, from the standpoint of those of us who want something
done for the Philippines. It keeps it just where it is possible to make deals
about it in connection with the rate bill, and this is exactly what we wish
to avoid. I am informed that the opponents of the Philippine tariff legisla-
tion are quietly rejoicing over your proposed action, as they think it cannot
but be unfavorable in its results to the bill. 1 It seems to me that no action
whatever should be taken until we get the rate business out of the way. Then
there will be a chance of our doing something. Until the rate business
is out of the way it will dwarf everything else. Moreover, I do not think
there should be action taken until we are able to say all we can on behalf
of such action. We earnestly hope that the action will not be taken until
there is the most ample opportunity to discuss the whole business without
there being any other subject before the Senate which will dwarf it in im-
portance. Taft will go over the whole matter with you Sincerely yours

1 Arthur Henderson Smith, Congregational missionary to China, 1872-1925; author
of Chinese Characteristics (Shanghai, 1890), China in Convulsion (New York, 1901).

2 Smith had suggested that a portion of the Boxer mdemnity be used for scholarships
for Chinese students in American universities. This plan, adopted in 1908, was a
significant contribution to the development of friendly relations between China and
America.

1 Brandegee, Burrows, and their fellow protectionists continued to refuse to permit
the Senate Committee on the Philippines to report the tariff bill. Chairman Lodge
and Beveridge, themselves protectionists, but both deeply concerned with imperial

policy, were considering an attempt on the floor of the Senate to call the bill back
for debate.

206

3879 # TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, April 9, 1906

Dear Gilder: I shall be interested in meeting Wells. 1 He has a distinct im-
aginative streak in his nature. As for socialists, I am sorry to say that, in
particular so far as they represent an extreme type, I have less and less re-
spect for them as time goes on. Let me know when Wells is coming here
and I shall try and arrange to have him at lunch. Faithfully yours

PIS. I have heard from Wells and have asked him to lunch here Wednes-
day, May 9th. [ Handwritten ] Can’t you come too*

3880 • to oscar solomon straus Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, April 10, 1906

My dear Mr. Straus: I have received your letter of April 9th. Before this
you have doubtless received the copy of the cable that Meyer sent. I saw
Baron Rosen the day that you were on here, and received from him in the
course of what was of course an entirely unofficial conversation the positive
statement that Russia was fully alive to the situation and was taking every
step to prevent any trouble to the Jews. 1 Baron Rosen spoke very warmly
of your courtesy and consideration. I am bound to add that he stated that
another prominent Jewish gentleman 2 in New York City had prejudiced
Witte against the cause for which he was pleading, by his attitude.

Large numbers of people, including for instance Andrew D. White, have
headed one petition, and the Governor of Massachusetts is heading another,
asking that we interfere about the Congo Free State or the Armenians in
Turkey. I do not have to tell you, my dear Mr. Straus, what apparently
some others are wholly unable to understand, namely, that it is a literal
physical impossibility to interfere in any of these cases, save in the most
guarded manner, under penalty of making this nation ridiculous and of
aggravating instead of ameliorating the fate of those for whom we inter-
fere. Nobody expects the United States to start a crusade for the Armenians,
or to go to war with Russia because of the massacre of the Jews or the
sufferings of either the Poles or the Finns. Probably such a war would to-
tally fail of its object and would simply do damage all around, but as of
course no such war is contemplated by even the wildest enthusiasts, it is
not necessary to discuss it. It is therefore necessary to remember how futile,
undignified and mischievous it is to use language or attempt interference

1 Herbert George Wells whose fascination with space, time, socialist doctrine, and
interplanetary life and love had already confined but not yet destroyed the greatest
creative imagination m English literature since Dickens. Then visiting America, about
which he later wrote a pleasant book, he missed none of the wonders of nature
including those in the White House.

1 In Odessa, anti-Semitism had again assumed a violent form.

3 Jacob Schiff.

207

which would only be justified if, and could under no conceivable circum-
stances do good unless, there was intention to back up the words by an
appeal to arms.

All of this it is needless to write as far as you are concerned, but there
are some of your friends who need to have these considerations ever clearly
before their eyes. Faithfully yours

3881 - to upton Sinclair Roosevelt Mss

Personal Washington, April 11, 1906

My dear Mr. Sinclair: I have received your letter and also your telegram.
From the latter you seemed to be a good deal more agitated than the facts
warrant. Your Chicago correspondent showed a distinctly untrustworthy
habit of mind in his telegram about “columns of official whitewash from
Washington.” There has been no official whitewash or official anything else
sent out from Washington. The information to which he refers came from
a Chicago newspaper to their Washington correspondent. Your correspond-
ent shows his caliber when he states that further official action will be of
no effect and that you had better fight in the papers. This is enough to
prove his utter untrustworthiness. As for Commissioner Neill and Mr. Rey-
nolds, surely you cannot imagine that men as well known as they are could
go to Chicago and have their presence remain entirely unknown. All that
they can investigate are matters concerning which it would be impossible
suddenly to make changes. For example, if there is a big false tank anywhere
it cannot be gotten at at once. The investigation by a special man to be put
inside to find out the exact facts will be something that will doubtless take
months, and to have it known that such was our plan would of course hurt
our efforts. So far I have not seen even a hint about it develop If it gets out
it will get out only through your own friends.

As for attacking The Jungle in my speech next Saturday, I have no more
idea of doing so than I have of attacking in that same speech the packers on
what The Jungle contains. I shall of course do nothing until I have data
on which to base action.

Let me repeat that both you and your correspondents must keep your
heads if you expect to make your work of value. You say you “cannot be-
lieve” that I will “allow falsehoods to be telegraphed to the Chicago Tribune
m my name,” and that you feel you are “entitled to a vindication.” Most cer-
tainly you need not believe that I will permit such conduct, for I have not
permitted it and should not dream of permitting it. Nothing has been tele-
graphed to Chicago m my name so far as I am aware, and so I do not know
what you would expect to be “vindicated” about. I am really at a loss to
understand what it is to which you refer. Sincerely yours

P.S. Since writing the above I have received your letter. In it you take
exactly the right position. I have not spoken to the Chicago Tribune corre-

208

spondent on the matter and have not the least idea what the Tribune has
said, but it cannot be any quotation from me because I have said nothing.
Keep quiet, just as I shall keep quiet, and let the investigation go on. I have
been trying to find out from the Department of Agriculture if anybody
gave out from there any information as to the alleged report of the Depart-
ment. I was not satisfied with this report, as it did not seem to me full and
specific enough, and have notified the Department that I shall consider it
merely as a preliminary report and that it is not to be given out in any way
or shape and that I wish it verified. Neill and Reynolds will help verify it.
All I can say, my dear Mr. Sinclair, is that I intend before I get through to
be able to have authoritative reasons for saying “proved,” or “unproved,”
or “not susceptible of proof,” or “probably true,” or “probably untrue,” of
each specific charge advanced against the packers. I cannot afford to be hur-
ried any more than I can afford to be stopped from making the investiga-
tion. It may take months before we can get a really satisfactory statement.

[Handwritten] P.S. no 2. Your second telegram has just come; really,
Mr. Sinclair, you must keep your head. It is absurd to become so nervous
over such an article. Hundreds such appear about me all the time, with quite
as little foundation.

3882 • to knute nelson Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, April 11, 1906

My dear Senator Nelson. I write you at once because I think the action of
Senator Hale, who I suppose represents Mr. Aldrich and others, m ref-
erence to Mr. Bailey’s amendment alters the situation. Under the circum-
stances I do not believe that Senator Allison ought to put in that portion of
his amendment dealing with a stay, without careful consideration. At first
I questioned very seriously the constitutionality and wisdom of Bailey’s
amendment. I gradually grew to feel that it was all right on the score of
wisdom, if it was constitutional, and I would have no objection to it if it
were put m a separate clause so that if it were declared unconstitutional it
would not jeopardize the whole bill. Apparently the so-called “railway
Senators” or so-called “conservative Senators” (I use both terms simply as
descriptive) are planning to unite with Bailey for a broad court review and
a prohibition of temporary injunctions I have reason to believe that one or
two of them adopted the plan under the belief that it will be declared un-
constitutional, and that the whole legislation will thus be upset. Others are
no doubt honest in their belief that it is more to the interest of the railroads
(and therefore under these circumstances against the interests of the public)
to have a broad court review than to have the right of trying to get stays
or temporary injunctions. Now it seems to me that, as a matter of tactics,
we ought not to confuse the issue or permit others to confuse it. I hope our
people, under the lead of you and Allison, will insist upon a separate vote

209

upon the question of a broad review versus the review as we propose to
restrict it. To do this it is very necessary that the question of the treatment
of the stay or temporary injunction matter be separate from the question of
the court review itself. In other words, I think that Senator Allison’s amend-
ment should be broken into two amendments. I think it far more important
that we should fight upon the question of a broad as against a narrow court
review than upon the question as to the method of dealing with a stay or
temporary injunction. Let me repeat that as regards the last I am perfectly
content with Bailey’s amendment provided it be put in a separate clause, but
of course will stand with our men heartily for an amendment in substance
such as Senator Allison proposes — that is, one allowing the stay to be
granted only after the Commission has been given the chance to be heard,
and then I should hope only upon some such terms as those outlined in
Spooner’s amendment.

You will excuse my writing, but the situation seems to me to be pretty
important. Sincerely yours

3883 • TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON ' Roosevelt MsS

Personal Washington, April 12, 1906

My dear Senator Allison: The more I think over this railroad rate matter
and the antics of the men who are, under all kinds of colors, trying to pre-
vent any kind of effective legislation, the more I think that through their
own action the so-called “conservative” or so-called “railroad Senators” have
put us in a position where we should not hesitate to try to put a proper bill
through in combination with the Democrats. Moreover, I feel more and
more inclined to favor the proposition to forbid the courts from granting
temporary injunctions. Hale’s announcement of fealty to this proposition
has put a new phase on the matter. Personally I should vote as a separate
proposition for the Mallory amendment, which, as I understand it, contains
this feature, it being understood that it shall go into a separate clause by
itself so that if declared unconstitutional it would not jeopardize the bill as
a whole. In any event it seems to me that it would be well to insist upon a
separation of the two amendments; that is, of the amendment dealing with
the court review and of the amendment dealing with temporary injunctions.
The former, which I regard as vital amendment, should be fought exactly
on the lines of the understanding reached the other day; that is, it should
be limited strictly to the question of the Commission’s acting within its au-
thority and to each man having his constitutional rights secured. As for the
other amendment, I should myself favor the Mallory amendment; but if
that is impossible, then one forbidding the courts granting an injunction
without a hearing of the Commission’s side, and then only on such terms as
those set forth in the Spooner amendment.

210

I am not at all sure but that the easy way will be to come right back to
the bill as it passed the House, and with very few unimportant amendments
to pass it as it stands. Sincerely yours

3884 • TO JOHN D. KERNAN Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 13, 1906

My dear Mr . Kernan: I thank you for your letter of the 1 ith instant. Most
certainly I shall not support any bill that does not have the rate go into
effect immediately, subject of course to review by the courts. The only
thing that has bothered me is how to stop the courts granting a temporary
stay or injunction. I should like to do this, but I am not absolutely certain
it is constitutional. I should approve of Senator Mallory’s amendment to
this effect if put into a separate clause so that if declared unconstitutional it
would not jeopardize the rest of the bill.

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

3885 • TO GEORGE HAMMOND SULLIVAN AND

WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, April 16, 1906

Gentlemen: I have read your final argument as well as the original argument
and exhibits for the New Panama Canal Company, together with the com-
munications from the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Department of
Justice and the letter of Secretary Taft of November 15, 1904, and have
given the matter my most careful consideration. Let me at the outset say
that it is perfectly clear to me that even if my decision was favorable to your
claim, I could not pay it without specific authorization by Congress. I should
certainly not be willing to pay it without such authorization. But after very
careful thought I am obliged to come to the conclusion that I would not be
warranted in deciding that there is any right or justice in paying over from
the Government of the United States anything in addition to the forty mil-
lion dollars already paid. I cannot escape the belief that in the first place the
ten per cent margin must be held to cover this extra digging, and that in
the second place the real purpose of the digging was to preserve the rights
of the Canal Company if the proposed sale to the United States at any time
fell through. To have stopped the digging would have meant the deteriora-
tion of the property, and so long as the Colombian Government was in
control might have exposed the company to the forfeiture of its franchise.
Under the circumstances I am reluctantly compelled to find adversely to the
claim of your client. Sincerely yours

2 1 1

3886 • to Robert Lincoln o’brien Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, April 16, 1906

My deai O'Brien. 1 I have your letter of the 13 th. The trouble is that the
courts need to have a little rapping now and then. It is unhealthy that they
should feel above all criticism — very unhealthy indeed that, for instance, a
man like Judge Humphrey should have nothing said about his recent deci-
sion. 2 I do not know whether I shall say anything, but if I do I shall try to
keep the scales as even as I know how.

With best wishes, I am, Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] Of course the yells against the courts by the Hearst
creatures, professional labor agitators, & socialists, make one feel that they
should never be criticised at all' But this won’t do

3887 • to jacob august riis Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, April 18, 1906

Dear Jake: Your letter pleases me very much. I am so glad you liked what
I said. I felt the time had come to make just such a speech, and it expressed
my deepest and most earnest convictions. 1 I am no more to be frightened
out of a sane and courageous radicalism by the creatures who yell that it
is socialism, than to be frightened out of a proper conservatism by the
equally senseless yell that it represents reaction. In New York City we of
course meet, especially among those controlling the various great interests
and their satellites in the daily press, with the most violent opposition to the
needed radicalism; and they are quite blind to the fact that such opposition
merely paves the way for the red radicalism against which we must all stand
I feel just as you do about the very large fortunes They are needless and
useless, for they make no one really happy and increase no one’s usefulness,
and furthermore they do infinite harm and they contain the threat of far
greater harm.

I, too, believe that the tariff must be revised, and along the lines you
indicate; but of course I am up to my ears in all the fighting that I can well
undertake at the moment. Faithfully yours

"Robert Lincoln O’Brien, Cleveland’s personal secretary, 1892-1895, Washington
correspondent for the Boston Transcript, 1895-1906; editor of the Transcript, April
i, 1906-1910, editor of the Boston Herald, 1910-1928.

“See No. 3859, note r.

"These most earnest convictions attracted great attention. Into a single speech on
April 14, Roosevelt packed “the man with the muck-rake,” a demand for federal
limitations on capitalization, and a request for a federal inheritance tax, American
Problems, Nat Ed. XVI, 415-424.

2 I 2

3888 * to ernest harvier Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, April 18, 1906

My dear Mr. Harvier : 1 I thank you for that excellent editorial. For your
own information merely I will explain that Mrs. Storer, who is a very good
woman but I think slightly unbalanced, had gotten to feel so violent a hatred
for Archbishop Corrigan as to make her transfer no small part of this feel-
ing to his successor, Archbishop Farley, and she was almost as much engaged
in an intrigue against Archbishop Farley as in supporting Archbishop Ire-
land, and she had dragged Storer m with her. 2 The situation finally became
absolutely intolerable unless I was to be made to appear not merely as sanc-
tioning interference by an American Ambassador in a matter of ecclesiastical
preferment, but interference by him in a purely hostile sense to the Arch-
bishop of my own city, for whom I had a real respect and regard; as of
course I have also, in the highest degree, for Archbishop Ireland.

I may add that my final action, however, was due not directly to these
causes at all, but to the simple fact that Storer and Mm. Storer positively
declined to answer my letters. After my first letter, which proposed certain
definite and specific conditions and required an immediate answer, had been
left unanswered three months, I had no alternative but to remove Storer.
Sincerely yours

3889 • TO GEORGE COOPER PARDEE Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Washington, April 18, 1906

It was difficult at first to credit the news of the calamity that had befallen
San Francisco. I feel the greatest concern and sympathy for you 1 and the
people not only of San Francisco but of California in this terrible disaster.
You will let me know if there is anything the National Government can
do. 2

1 Ernest Harvier, New York City Democrat, commissioner of Park Avenue improve-
ment under Mayor Strong, at this time publisher of the Sunday Democrat and
editorial writer for the New York Sun.

* Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archbishop of New York, 1886-1902, a conservative
churchman and strict canomst, had long been an opponent of Ireland on matters of
church policy and a rival for the cardinalate. Archbishop John Murphy Farley
adopted more liberal policies in his administration of the archdiocese. An able and
popular man, he was made a cardinal m 1911.

1 George Cooper Pardee, Republican Governor of Calif orma, 1903-1907, member of
the National Conservation Commission, 1907-1909

2 The national government immediately acted to relieve the suffering and to repair
the destruction caused by the San Francisco earthquake The War Department sent
troops, food, and bedding; the Navy Department ordered a Pacific squadron with
medical supplies to West Coast ports. Roosevelt himself directed that the United
States Mmt at San Francisco be used as a depository for private contributions that
were immediately forthcoming, and sent a special message to Congress recommend-
ing appropriations to rebuild the damaged government buildings

213

3890 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, April 18, 1906

My dear Secretary Taft: What have you done about getting some more
troops quietly into Idaho — or even not quietly if necessary? 1 Sincerely
yours

3891 • TO EDGAR HUIDEKOPER WELLS ROOSeVelt MSS.

Washington, April 20, 1906

My dear Wells : 1 1 have read your letter to Ted. I think he was impressed
much, and rather gloomily, by it; but he said with great good sense that you
had put an altogether impossible ideal before him. The three men you men-
tion are phenomenal men. Ted hasn’t got the mental ability to stand as any
one of the three stands in his lessons, any more than he has the physical
ability to stand as two of the three stood in athletics. I cannot well ask Ted
to do much more than I did. I was the last man of the Phi Beta Kappa,
which, if I remember right, meant that I just came in the first tenth of the
class on the old marking system. I got into the Pore, in my junior year, was
in the first nine of the Pudding, and in the voting for third marshal I came
out third. I taught a mission class throughout my college career, although
I never was very certain that I did much good by it. We used to have in-
door athletic meets in those days, and I went in for boxing and wrestling
in the light-weight class, getting a trial heat in the boxing and not even
that in the wrestling. Athletically, Ted is ahead of me. It is not very much
to be on the freshman eleven, or to be trying for the pole-vault on the
team, but it is ahead of what I was able to do, by a good deal. In studies I
feel he could do better than he has done, and I think he will do better. Of
course I should greatly like to have him make the Pore., but I have no idea
whether he will or not. If he does not I suppose he will be greatly disap-
pointed, but he will have to take it as in after life he will have to take many
other disappointments. I hope that when he gets a little more settled in his
class he will try to do some useful work in the class — such as Blagden, the
deputy marshal of the Pore., seems now to be doing, such as Dick Derby
and Louis Frothingham did — or else will try to do some kind of philan-
thropic work outside. He knows that these are my ambitions for him.

Do let me say again how much I appreciate the interest you have taken.
Faithfully yours

1 Taft had done nothing, for to act he needed Presidential authorization. With this
letter as authority, he acted “quietly.” On his instructions the Chief of Staff ordered
two troops of cavalry to take a “practice march” from Walla Walla, Washington, to
Boise, Idaho. The troops arrived in Boise on May 4. For the detailed orders on this
matter, see Bennett Milton Rich, The Presidents and Civil Disorder (Washington,
1941), p. 120.

‘Edgar Huidekoper Wells, assistant dean of Harvard College, 1905-1907.

3892 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 20, 1906

My dear Mr. Moody: I have just received your letter in reference to the
plea of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad of guilty under the
Elkins Act on a charge of giving rebates. I am glad that $60,000 fine was
imposed, but I am very clear that we ought to have the law altered by
restoring the power of the court to imprison in addition to fining. Is there
any possibility of getting this through Congress? 1 Can you not recommend
that it be done? Sincerely yours

3893 * TO PHILANDER CHASE KNOX Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, April 22, 1906

My dear Mr. Knox: Moody brought around the bill you and he had fixed up.
I like the proviso part very much. It seems to me, however, that there ought
to be some such expression as would indicate that what we are driving at
is, whether the Commission had “exceeded its authority” (or some such
phrase) under the Interstate Commerce Act and the acts supplementary
thereto. I think it makes the review too broad in its present shape. How-
ever, I think this is more or less academic because Senator Allison and all
the others whom I saw felt that it would be most inadvisable to vary in any
substantial particular from the so-called Long amendment unless we went
straight back and passed the Hepburn bill as it came from the House, an
opinion which at the moment is evidently gaining ground. 1

I shall go over all of this with you this evening. Sincerely yours

1 The Hepburn Act, as finally passed, re-imposed the penalty of imprisonment, as
well as of fine, for departures from published tariffs.

a The opinion was to prevail. The reliable Allison drafted the amendment which
both Roosevelt and Aldrich were willing to accept. It added little to the
House’s version of the Hepburn Bill. While granting jurisdiction, in rate cases,
to the circuit courts, the amendment left the definition of review to the courts
themselves. It also empowered the courts to “enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend
any order of the IC.C” It further directed that no injunctions restraining the
orders of the ICC should be granted without five days’ notice to the commission
and provided that appeals from such orders were to go directly to the Supreme Court
with the calendar priorities of antitrust cases.

The acceptance of the Allison Amendment, confining as it did the rate-making
authority of the commission by increasing the jurisdiction of the courts, forced
Roosevelt to accept less than he requested in early April, but if he had not done so
he could never have obtained majority approval for the Hepburn Act in the Senate,
for further analysis, see Appendix II. Aldrich had not been able to prevent railroad
regulation, but he had beaten a successful retreat The Allison Amendment seemed
almost to invite broad review. Yet in the end Roosevelt had his way, for the
Supreme Court in the Illinois Central car supply case of 1910 refused to “usurp
merely administrative functions by setting aside a lawful administrative order.”
Accepting the narrow interpretation of the Long Amendment, the Court ruled that
“power to make the order and not the mere expediency or wisdom of having made
it, is the question.” - Ripley, Railroads, Rates and Regulation, pp 540-541.

2 1 5

3894 * TO MABEL THORP BOARDMAN Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, April 22, 1906

My dear Miss Boardmm : 1 You have seen the notice to the public which I
have issued asking that Dr. Devine 2 be sent all contributions. In the interest
of the Red Cross Association I very earnestly suggest that through Mr.
Cleveland H. Dodge or through Mr. Jacob H. Schiff you send out an expert
auditor to San Francisco to check the expenditures and to keep the account
of not only the money but of the supplies, so that we may be able to give
a full statement not only as to the money but as to the supplies. I do not
intend that any red tape shall interfere with at once succoring the San Fran-
cisco people in their dire need, but we have to remember that when once
the emergency is over there will be plenty of fools and plenty of knaves to
make accusations against us, and plenty of good people who will believe
them, and it is necessary that at as early a date as possible we shall have
things m such shape as to enable us to make a clear statement of what we
have done, as in a certain sense the almoners or trustees of the public in this
matter. Will you not take this up at once and let me know about it* Sin-
cerely yours

3895 • TO WILLIAM PLUMER POTTER Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, April 23, 1906

My dear Judge Potter : 1 1 thank you heartily for your more than kind letter
of the 2 2d instant. Do you think we really need constitutional amendments
to put that inheritance tax into operation* As you know, we had a federal
inheritance tax on the statute books within ten years of the adoption of the
Constitution. 2 I am not a believer that very much can be done in matters
that concern the entire Nation by the individual action of the States. Per-
haps m speaking to a student of history like yourself I can best explain
myself by saying that while I am a Jeffersonian m my genuine faith in
democracy and popular government, I am a Hamiltonian m my govern-
mental views, especially with reference to the need of the exercise of broad

1 Mabel Thorp Boardman, member of the Central Committee and chairman of the
National Relief Board of the American Red Cross.

“Edward Thomas Devine, at that time secretary of the New York City Charity
Organization Society, 1896-1912, editor of the Survey , 1897-1912, and a professor of
social economy at Columbia University, 1905-19 19. Dr. Devine was appointed a
special representative of the American Red Cross in charge of the relief work at San
Francisco

1 William Plumer Potter, Pittsburgh Republican, since 1900 a Justice of the Pennsyl-
vania Supreme Court.

“An inheritance tax “was first imposed by the act of July 6, 1797. ... It was a
graduated tax, though small in amount, the rate was increased with the amount left
to any individual, exceptions being made in the case of certain close km.” — State
Papers , Nat. Ed. XV, 370.

ii6

powers by the National Government. Naturally you will understand that
I am speaking with no pretense at exactness in thus using the names of
Jefferson and Hamilton.

As a practical matter the States won’t operate together in cases like
this, and unless they should all operate together — in which case it would
be far simpler to have the National Government operate — the work will
be defective. However, I am well aware that it will be a long and tedious
process to accomplish anything of that at which I am aiming.

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yows

3896 * TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 23, 1906

My dear Dr . Abbott: A word as to your comments on my muck rake speech,
or rather as to what you say therein as to the inheritance tax. I did not mean
that my remedy would be “adequate.” I have a profound distrust for the
public man who, when dealing with a great problem, jauntily produces a
patent solution which wnll entirely solve it. My purpose was chiefly to do
just what I have done; that is, to awaken people to the fact that the evil in
question has come within the sphere of practical politics, so that a sane (and
I hope a reasonably conservative) President deems it proper to take notice
of it and proposes a remedy that would do something toward diminishing it.
Personally, I have no doubt that the Federal Government can levy the pro-
gressive tax proposed and I have seen no satisfactory effort made to refute
this proposition. (You will recall that we had a Federal inheritance tax in
1797 or thereabouts ) As for the other and additional remedies, I have al-
ways felt that there should be a progressive income tax, but it is much more
difficult to frame such a tax that will be constitutional and effective and will
not amount in large part to a tax on honesty. You say that my proposed
remedy would only “mitigate” and not “cure” the evil. I quite agree with
you, and I agree with you that the remedy must go deeper, but the great
difficulty in making it go deeper is shown by what you say in following
out this remark of yours; for your own proposed remedies are either very
vaguely outlined or else would be inadequate, and m what I said, I particu-
larly wished to avoid vagueness, and to speak only what would be at least
measurably adequate. You speak of modifying the tariff with a view to the
prevention of large fortunes. I do not myself believe that any modification
of the tariff would have more than a trivial effect upon these large fortunes.
The Rockefellers, Harrimans, Jim Hills, Goulds, Vanderbilts, and Astors, for
instance, would not be affected in the slightest degree by the tariff save as
the general country was affected. Our big bankers are neither made richer
nor poorer by the tariff, any more than the Rothschilds in England are af-
fected by the tariff. I do not suppose that the size of Wanamaker’s fortune
has been m the least affected by the tariff. I suppose that Pierpont Morgan

217

has been slightly affected by it; but not materially. I think there should be
radical modifications of the tariff, and I believe that most of these very rich
men want these modifications — for instance, Morgan, I happen to know
wants the duty taken off of steel — but such alteration would have little ef-
fect in the reduction of the big fortunes; and to propose it as such, means in
most cases, as in the case of the New York Times, merely drawing a red
herring across the trail in the effort to divert attention to a side issue.

I quite agree with the next point you make about bringing corporations
under legislative supervision and control so that the common people can in-
vest their savings in productive industrial enterprises as safely as in savings
banks. This of course is partly what I am aiming at in my other proposition
which you discuss; that is, this remedy is one of the very remedies I propose.

But your next and what you state as your most important proposition,
leaves me completely at sea as to what you mean. You say that above all
we must “by a system of taxation upon the land and its contents, secure to
the people that common wealth which under our present industrial system
is put up to be gambled for by the unscrupulous or laid hold of for their
own benefit by the astute and the strong.” Is this a revival of Mr. Henry
George’s theory? Aside from the abstract merits of that theory I think it
would be about as futile, as regards achieving the object which you and I
have in view, as Mr. Bryan’s “sixteen to one” mint coinage. If you do not
mean Mr. Henry George’s theory I suppose you mean that the Government
ought to keep control of the coal lands, for instance. I agree with you about
the coal and oil lands too, if this is your position, and am at this moment
trying to get legislation that will prevent our remaining coal and oil lands
from being permanently alienated Perhaps you mean that we ought to pur-
sue a different course as regards franchises. In any event, my dear Dr.
Abbott, when you speak of this, which you regard as the most important
remedy, I want to point out that you use language so vague that I, for in-
stance, am utterly at sea to understand your meaning; either you have in
view something which I do not understand, or else it is something which
would, as a means to the end in view, amount to very little compared to my
proposals. In my speech what I wanted to do was to speak so plainly as to
be understood by the multitude. The Evening Post, the Times, and similar
papers were sure to have hysterics about my going too far, and the Journal
and similar papers about my not going far enough But I think I succeeded
in calling sharp attention to the evil and in indicating two or three ways in
which action could be taken so as in part to remedy it. Of course it will be
hard enough in any event to get action taken even in these two or three di-
rections; and the difficulty will be immeasurably increased if those who
really believe in trying to abate the evil confine themselves to championing
something fantastic or to pointing out the inadequacy of the remedies, in
such terms as can only strengthen the hands of the people who desire to do
nothing.

Sometime come down here and we will talk over this. Sincerely yours
P.S. I wish you had noted one part of my speech, which curiously
enough seems to have attracted no attention, and which I regarded as being
quite as important as what I said about big fortunes; that is, what I said as
to the labor leaders who express sympathy with other labor leaders accused
of murder, simply because they are labor leaders. As you know, I am en-
tirely in sympathy with the Outlook's view as to the damage done to our
country by the mere existence of these swollen and monstrous fortunes; as
to the damage done by the rich man who is wicked; and as to the need of
exercising thorough supervision and control over the use of individual and
corporate wealth in business. But it is urgently necessary to keep before the
minds of our people the great danger of permitting any growth of that
unhealthy sentimentality and morbid “class-consciousness” which in their ex-
treme form find vent in sympathy or excuse for the scoundrally utterances
of Debs; which condone the action of Altgeld; which are halfhearted in
condemning, or even faintly excuse, the Hay market bomb-throwers; and
which now pay no heed to the wickedness of the attempt by many of the
labor leaders to interfere with the course of justice on behalf of the men
accused of the murder of the ex-Govemor of Idaho. It is nonsense to say
that there is any danger whatever that these men will not receive a fair trial.
Under pretense of asking for a fair trial a consistent effort has been made to
influence public opinion, to inflame mob violence, and to overawe the civil
authorities in the interest of Moyer and Haywood, who, whether guilty of
this particular crime or not, have been for years influential in managing a
labor union whose very existence has been conditioned upon outrage and
assassination.

I enclose you for your private information a letter I sent to the Attorney
General on this subject.

3897 * TO EUGENE E. SCHMITZ Roosevelt MSS .

Telegram Washington, April 25, 1906

Telegram signed by yourself, 1 Judge Morrow, 2 ex-Mayor Phelan 3 and
others, received. Have just issued the following proclamation:

1 Eugene E. Schmitz, corrupt mayor of San Francisco who, with his political ally
“Abe” Ruef, controlled the entire city administration For long the two had ac-
cepted bribes in return for railway, gas, and telephone franchises and prize fight
permits During the confusion resulting from the earthquake Schmitz and Ruef
specifically overruled public opinion by permitting franchises to the Umted Railroads
to electrify its lines and use overhead trolleys in return for $400,000.

They were investigated in the fall of 1906 by William Bums, prosecuted by
Heney and Hiram Johnson, and indicted for bribery and extortion

2 William W. Morrow, at this time United States circuit judge, ninth judicial circuit,
1897-1922. Morrow previously had been United States Attorney before the Alabama
Claims Commission, 1882-1885, Republican representative, 1885-1891, and incorpo-
rator of the American Red Cross.

8 James Duval Phelan, Democrat, mayor of San Francisco, 1897-1902, later senator
from California, 1 91 5-1 921.

219

To the Public

When the news of the dreadful disaster at San Francisco first came it was
necessary to take immediate steps to provide in some way for the receipt and
distribution of the sums of money which at once poured in for the relief of the
people of San Francisco. At the moment no one could foretell how soon it would
be possible for the people of San Francisco themselves to organize, and to tide
over the interval, the American National Red Cross Association was designated
to receive and disburse the funds. But the people of San Francisco, with an energy
and self-reliant courage, a cool resourcefulness, and a capacity for organized and
orderly endeavor which are beyond all praise, have already met the need through
committees appointed by the Mayor of the City, ex-Mayor James D. Phelan being
chairman of the Finance Committee The work of committees has been astonishing
in its range, promptness and efficiency. As I am informed by Major General
Greely, although all local transportation was destroyed as well as practically
every supply store in the city, these local committees with the help of the army
have succeeded in caring for three hundred thousand homeless people in the last
five days. Thanks to their efforts no individual is now suffering severely for food,
water or temporary shelter. This work has been done with the minimum of
waste and under conditions which would have appalled men less tramed in
busmess methods, endowed with less ability, or inspired with any but the highest
motives of humanity and helpfulness. The need of employing the Red Cross, save
as an auxiliary, has passed, and I urge that hereafter all contributions from any
source be sent direct to James D. Phelan, Chairman, Finance Committee, San
Francisco. Mr. Devine of the Red Cross will disburse any contribution sent to
him through ex-Mayor Phelan, and will work m accord with him in all ways.

There was of course absolutely no question that every sufferer would
be helped simply as a sufferer by your committees as soon as they were or-
ganized, and action through the Red Cross was simply to fill the gap until
your organization was perfected, and it would of course have been a dere-
liction of duty on our part if we had not at once taken steps to see that the
gap was filled at a time when it was impossible for us to know how soon
you would be organized. I have sent a message to Congress today urging an
immediate appropriation for work at the Mare Island Navy Yard, and for an
immediate appropriation for the building asked for by the War Department
In a few days I shall send in a further communication for the rebuilding of
the other public buildings, but I am not yet able to get details. as to the
amount needed for these.

3898 * TO JEAN JULES JUSSERAND Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 25, 1906

My dear Mr . Ambassador : During the past year our relations have been
those of peculiar intimacy in dealing with more than one great problem,
and particularly in connection with the Morocco conference, and there are
certain things which I think I ought to say to you.

It is the simple and literal truth to say that in my judgment we owe it
to you more than to any other one man that the year which has closed has
not seen a war between France and Germany, which, had it begun, would

220

probably have extended to take in a considerable portion of the world. In
last May and June the relations between the two countries were so strained
that such a war was imminent. Probably the only way it could have been
avoided was by an international conference, and such a conference could
only have been held on terms compatible with France’s honor and dignity.
You ■were the man most instrumental in having just this kind of conference
arranged for. I came into the matter at all most unwillingly, and I could not
have come into it at all if I had not possessed entire confidence alike in
your unfailing soundness of judgment and m your high integrity of personal
conduct. Thanks to the fact that these are the two dominant notes in your
personality my relationship with you has been such as I think has very, very
rarely obtained between any ambassador at any time and the head of the
government to which that ambassador was accredited, and certainly no am-
bassador and no head of a government could ever stand to one another on a
footing at once more pleasant and more advantageous to their respective
countries than has been the case with you and me. If, in these delicate Mo-
rocco negotiations, I had not been able to treat you with the absolute frank-
ness and confidence that I did, no good result could possibly have been
obtained; and this frankness and confidence were rendered possible only be-
cause of the certainty that you would do and advise what was wisest to be
done and advised, and that you would treat all that was said and done be-
tween us two as a gentleman of the highest honor treats what is said and
done in the intimate personal relations of life. If you had been capable of
adopting one line of conduct as a private individual and another as a public
man I should have been wholly unable to assume any such relations with
you; nor, on the other hand, however high your standard of honor, could
I have assumed them had I not felt complete confidence in the soundness
and quickness of your judgment. The service you rendered was primarily
one to France, but it was also a service to the world at large; and in render-
ing it you bore yourself as the ideal public servant should bear himself, for
such a public servant should with trained intelligence know how to render
the most effective service to his own country while yet never deviating by
so much as a hand’s breadth from the code of mutual good faith and scrupu-
lous regard for the rights of others, which should obtain between nations no
less than between gentlemen. I do not suppose that you will ever gam any
personal advantage, and perhaps not even any personal recognition, because
of what you have done in the past year, but I desire that you should at least
know my appreciation of it.

With hearty respect and good will, believe me, Very faithfully yours

3899 • to owen wister Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, April 27, 1906

Dear Dan: That I have read Lady Baltimore with interest and that I think
it a very considerable book the length of this letter will show. If my wife

were to write the letter it would be one of almost undiluted praise, because
she looked at it simply as a work of art, simply as a story, and from either
standpoint it is entitled to nothing but admiration. The description of the
people and of their surroundings will always live in my memory, and will
make me continually turn back to read bits of the book here and there.
Moreover, (to a man of my possibly priggish way of looking at novels),
the general tone of the book is admirable, and to one who does not look at
it in any way as a tract of the times it leaves the right impression of sturdy
protest against what is sordid, against what is mere spangle-covered baseness,
against brutal greed and sensuality and vacuity; it teaches admiration of man-
liness and womanliness, as both terms must always be understood by those
capable of holding a high ideal.

But I am afraid the book cannot but be considered save as in part a tract
of the times, and from this standpoint, in spite of my hearty sympathy with
your denunciation of the very things that you denounce and your admira-
tion of the very things that you admire, I cannot but think that at the best
you will fail to do good, and that at the worst you may do harm, by over-
stating your case. The longer I have been in public life, and the more zealous
I have grown in movements of true reform, the greater the horror I have
come to feel for the exaggeration which so often defeats its own object. It
is needless to say to you that the exaggeration can be just as surely shown
as in any other way by merely omitting or slurring over certain important
facts. In your remarkable little sketch of Grant, by reciting with entire
truth certain facts of Grant’s life and passing over with insufficient notice
the remainder you could have drawn a picture of him as a drunken, brutal
and corrupt incapable, a picture in which almost every detail in the frame-
work would have been true in itself, but in which the summing up and
general effect would have been quite as false as if the whole had been a
mere invention. Now, of course, I don’t mean that this is true of Lady Balti-
more. You call attention to some mighty ugly facts and tendencies in our
modern American civilization, and it is because I so earnestly wish to see
the most effective kind of warfare waged against exactly what you denounce
that I regret yo,u did not put your denunciation in a way which would ac-
complish more good. In the first place, though it may have been all right
from the standpoint of the story, from the standpoint of the tract it was a
capital error to make your swine-devils practically all northerners and your
angels practically all southerners. You speak so sweepingly, moreover, that
you clearly leave the impression of intending the swine-devils to be repre-
sentative not of a small section of the well-to-do North, but of the over-
whelming majority of the well-to-do North; indeed, of the North which
leads. Now, as a matter of fact (remember I am speaking from the stand-
point of the tract) the contrast could have been made with much more real
truth between northerners and northerners, for then there would not have
been a strong tendency to divert the attention from the difference of qual-

222

ity to the difference of locality, and to confound this difference of quality
with difference of locality.

In the next place, I do not regard your sweeping indictment of the north-
ern people as warranted. That there is an immense amount of swinish greed
in northern business circles and of vulgarity and vice and vacuity and ex-
travagance m the social life of the North, I freely admit. But I am not pre-
pared to say that these are the dominant notes in either the business life or
the social life of the North. I know they are not the only notes. I am struck,
whenever I visit a college, whenever I have a chance to meet the people of
any city or town, with the number of good, straight, decent people with
whom I am brought in contact, with the number of earnest young fellows
with high purpose whom I meet, with the sweet young girls whom I see.
The men I get together to settle the Anthracite Coal Strike, the men I see
when there is a scientific gathering in Washington, the artists like Saint-
Gaudens and French and MacMonnies, the writers like Crothers and Hyde,
the men of the army whom I meet, the young fellows with whom I am
brought in contact in doing political work, the families with whom I am
intimate, yours, the Grant La Farges, the Gilders, my cousins, the Bacons,
and so I could go on indefinitely — all these go to show that the outlook is
in no shape or way one of unrelieved gloom. There is plenty of gloom m it,
but there is plenty of light also, and if it is painted as all gloomy, I am afraid
the chief effect will be to tend to make people believe that either it is all
black or else it is all white; and in its effect one view is just as bad as the
other. Smash vacuous, divorce-ridden Newport, but don’t forget Saunders-
town and Oyster Bay!

You also continually speak as if we have fallen steadily away from the
high standard of our past. Now I am unable to say exactly what the pro-
portions of good and evil are in the present, but I have not the slightest doubt
that they are quite favorable as in the past. I have studied history a good
deal and it is a matter of rather grim amusement to me to listen to the praise
bestowed on our national past at the expense of our national present. Have
you ever read Lecky’s account of the Revolutionary war^ 5 It is perhaps a
trifle too unfavorable to us, but is more nearly accurate than any other I
have seen Beyond all question we ought to have fought that war, and it was
very creditable to Washington and some of his followers and to a goodly
portion of the Continental troops; but I cannot say that it was very credit-
able to the nation as a whole. There were two and a half millions of us then,
just ten times as many as there were of the Boers in South Africa, and
Great Britain was not a fourth as strong as she was in the Boer war, and yet
on the whole I think the Boers made a good deal better showing than we
did. My forefathers, northerners and southerners alike, fought in the Revo-
lutionary army and served in the Continental Congress, and one of them
was the first Revolutionary governor of Georgia, so that I am not preju-
diced against our Revolutionary people. But while they had many excellent

223

qualities I think they were lacking as a whole m just the traits in which we
are lacking today; and I do not think they were as fine, on the whole, as we
are now. The second greatest Revolutionary figure, Franklin, to my mind
embodied just precisely the faults which are most distrusted m the average
American of the North today. Coming down to after the Revolution, we
have never seen a more pitiful exhibition of weakness at home or a greater
mixture of blustering insolence and incapacity in reference to affairs abroad
than was shown under Jefferson and Madison. So I could go on indefinitely
But let me take only what I have myself seen, where I can speak as a wit-
ness and participator. Thirty years ago politics in this country were dis-
tinctly more corrupt than they are now, and I believe that the general tone
was a little more sordid and that there was a little less of realizable idealism.
The social life in New York was not one bit better than it is now. Gould,
Sage, Daniel Drew, the elder Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk and the other financiers
of the day of that type were at the very least as bad as the corresponding
men of today. No financier at present would dare perpetrate the outrages
that Huntington was perpetrating some thirty years ago. Nothing so bad has
been done m the insurance companies as was done in the Chapter of Erie
The Newport set is wealthier and more conspicuous now, and I think the
divorce business is more loathsome, but I would certainly hesitate to say
that things were worse now than then, taking it as a whole. The Porcellian
Club of the last ten years, for instance, averages at least as well as the Por-
cellian Club for the ten years before I went into it. Among my own friends
and in the little circle in which I live at Oyster Bay I don’t see that there
is any difference of an essential kind as compared with my father’s friends
and with the circle in which he lived. In the Civil War our people — a mere
democracy — were better than in the Revolution, when they formed in part
a provincial aristocracy.

When you come to the South and- imply or express comparison between
the South and the North, I again think you have overstated it I am half a
southerner myself. I am as proud of the South as I am of the North. The
South has retained some barbaric virtues which we have tended to lose m
the North, partly owning to a mistaken pseudo-humamtariamsm among our
ethical creatures, partly owing to persistence m and perhaps the develop-
ment of those business traits which, however, distinguished New York,
New England and Pennsylvama a century ago just as they do today On the
other hand the southerners have developed traits of a very unhealthy kind
They are not as dishonest as, they do not repudiate their debts as frequently
as their predecessors did in the good old times from which you think we
have deteriorated; but they do not send as valuable men into the national
councils as the northerners. They are not on the whole as efficient, and they
exaggerate the common American tendency of using bombastic language
which is not made good by performance. Your particular heroes, the
Charleston aristocrats, offer as melancholy an example as I know of people

224

whose whole life for generations has been warped by their own w ill ful per-
versity. In the early part of South Carolina’s history there was a small fed-
eralist party and later a small and dwindling union party within the State, of
which I cannot speak too highly. But the South Carolina aristocrats, the
Charleston aristocrats and their kinsfolk in the upcountry (let me repeat that
I am of their blood, that my ancestors before they came to Georgia were
members of these very South Carolina families of whom you write) have
never made good their pretentions They were no more to blame than the
rest of the country for the slave trade of colonial days, but when the rest
of the country woke up they shut their eyes tight to the horrors, they in-
sisted that the slave trade should be kept, and succeeded m keeping it for
a quarter of a century after the Revolutionary war closed, they went into
secession partly to reopen it They drank and dueled and made speeches,
but they contributed very, very little toward anything of which we as
Americans are now proud. Their life was not as ignoble as that of the New-
port people whom you rightly condemn, yet I think it was in reality an
ignoble life. South Carolina and Mississippi were very much alike. Their
two great men of the deified past were Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, and I
confess, I am unable to see wherein any conscienceless financier of the pres-
ent day is worse than these two slave owners who spent their years in trying
to feed their thirst for personal power by leading their followers to the de-
struction of the Umon. Remember that the Charleston aristocrats (under
Yancey) wished to reopen the slave trade at the time of the outbreak of the
Civil War. Reconstruction was a mistake as it was actually carried out, and
there is very much to reprobate in what was done by Sumner and Seward
and their followers. But the blame attaching to them is as nothing compared
to the blame attaching to the southerners for forty years preceding the war,
and for the years immediately succeeding it. There never was another war,
so far as I know, where it can be honestly and truthfully said as of this
war that the right was wholly on one side, and the wrong wholly on the
other. Even the courage and prowess of those South Carolina aristocrats
were shown only at the expense of their own country, and only in the effort
to tear m sunder their country’s flag. In the Revolutionary war, in that re-
mote past which you idealize, as compared to the present, the South Caro-
linians made as against the British a fight which can only be called respect-
able. There was little heroism; and Marion and Sumter, in their fight against
Tarleton and the other British commanders, show at a striking disadvantage
when compared with De Wet and De La Rey and the other Boer leaders. In
the war of 1812 South Carolina did nothing. She reserved her strength until
she could strike for slavery and against the Union. Her people have good
stuff in them, but I do not think they are entitled to overpraise as compared
to the North As for the days of reconstruction, they brought their punish-
ment absolutely on themselves, and are, in my judgment, entitled to not one
particle of sympathy. The North blundered, but its blunders were in trying

225

to do right in the impossible circumstances which the South had itself cre-
ated, and for which the South was solely responsible.

Now as to the Negroes! I entirely agree with you that as a race and in
the mass they are altogether inferior to the whites. Your small German
scientific friend had probably not heard of the latest scientific theory —
doubtless itself to be superseded by others — which is that the Negro and
the white man as shown by their skulls, are closely akin, and taken together,
differ widely from the round skulled Mongolian. But admitting all that can
be truthfully said against the Negro, it also remains true that a great deal
that is untrue is said against him; and that much more is untruthfully said
in favor of the white man who lives beside and upon him. Your views of
the Negro are those expressed by all of your type of Charlestonians. You
must forgive my saying that they are only expressed in their entirety to
those who don’t know the facts. Are you aware that these white men of
the South who say that the Negro is unfit to cast a vote, and who by fraud
or force prevent his voting, are equally clamorous in insisting that his votes
must be counted as cast when it comes to comparing their own representa-
tion with the representation of the white men of the Norths The present
leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives is John Sharp Wil-
liams, a typical southerner of the type you mention. In his district three out
of every four men are Negroes; the fourth man, a white man, does not allow
any of these Negroes to vote, but insists upon counting their votes, so that
his one vote offsets the votes of four white men in New York, Massachusetts
or Pennsylvania. During my term as President bills have been introduced to
cut down the southern representation so as to have it based in effect only on
the white vote. With absolute unanimity the southerners have declared that
to deprive them of the right of the extra representation which as white men
they get by the fraudulent or violent suppression of the black vote is an
outrage. With their usual absurd misuse of nomenclature they inveigh
against the effort to prevent them crediting themselves with the votes of
which they deprive others as “waving the bloody shirt,” or being a plea for
“negro domination.” Your Charleston friends lead this outcry and are among
the chief beneficiaries, politically, of the fraud and violence which they tri-
umphantly defend. The North takes absolutely no interest m any such meas-
ure, and so far from having any feeling against the South or giving any
justification for the South’s statement that it wants to interfere with the
South’s concerns, it is really altogether too indifferent to what is done in
the South.

Now remember, Dan, what I am saying has nothmg to do with the right
of the Negro to vote, or of his unfitness generally to exercise that right. It
has to do simply with the consistent dishonesty championed and gloried
in by your special southern friends who will not allow the Negro to vote
and will not allow the nation to take notice of the fact that he is not voting,

226

and insist upon his vote counted so as to enable them to overcome the hon-
est white vote. I may add that my own personal belief is that the talk about
the Negro having become worse since the Civil war is the veriest nonsense.
He has on the whole become better. Among the Negroes of the South when
slavery was abolished there was not one who stood as m any shape or way
comparable with Booker Washington. Incidentally I may add that I do not
know a white man of the South who is as as good a man as Booker Washing-
ton today. You say you would not like to take orders from a Negro your-
self. If you had played football in Harvard at any tame during the last fif-
teen years you would have had to do so, and you would not have minded
it in the least, for during that time Lewis has been field captain and a coach.
When I was in Charleston at the exposition the very Charlestonians who
had hysterics afterward over Crum’s appointment as collector of the port,
assured me that Crum was one of the best citizens of Charleston, a very ad-
mirable man in every way, and while they protested that Negroes ought not
to be appointed as postmasters they said there was no such objection to ap-
pointing them in other places, and specifically mentioned the then colored
collector of customs in Savannah as a case in point. You cannot be more
keenly aware than I am of the fact that our effort to deal with the Negro has
not been successful. Whatever I have done with him I have found has often
worked badly; but when I have tried to fall in with the views of the very
southern people, which in this volume you seem to be upholding, the results
have been worse than in any other way. These very people whose views you
endorse are those who have tried to reintroduce slavery by the infamous
system of peonage; which, however, I think in the last three years we have
pretty well broken up. I am not satisfied that I acted wisely in either the
Booker Washington dinner or the Crum appointment, though each was ab-
solutely justified from every proper standpoint save that of expediency. But
the anger against me was just as great in the communities where I acted
exactly as the Charlestonians said I ought to act. I know no people in the
North so slavishly conventional, so slavishly afraid of expressing any opinion
hostile to or different from that held by their neighbors, as is true of the
southerners, and most especially of the Charleston aristocrats, on all vital
questions. They shriek in public about miscegenation, but they leer as they
talk to me privately of the colored mistresses and colored children of white
men whom they know. Twice southern senators who in the Senate yell about
the purity of the white blood, deceived me into appointing postmasters
whom I found had colored mistresses and colored children. Are you ac-
quainted with the case of the Indianola post office in Mississippi? I found in
office there a colored woman as postmaster. She and her husband were well-
to-do, and were quite heavy taxpayers. She was a very kindly, humble and
respectable colored woman. The best people of the town liked her. The two
bankers of the town, one of them the Democratic State senator, were on her

227

bond. I reappointed her, and the Senators from Mississippi moved her con-
firmation. Afterwards the low whites in the town happened to get stirred up
by the arrival of an educated colored doctor. His practice was of course
exclusively among the Negroes. He was one of those men who are painfully
educating themselves, and whose cases are more pitiful than the cases of any
other people m our country, for they not only find it exceedingly difficult
to secure a livelihood but are followed with hatred by the very whites who
ought to wish them well. Too many southern people and too many northern
people, repeat like parrots the statement that these “educated darkies” are
“a deal worse than the old darkies.” As a matter of fact almost all the
Tuskegee students do well. This particular Negro doctor took away the
Negro patients from the lowest white doctors of the town They instigated
the mob which held the mass meeting and notified the Negro doctor to leave
town at once, which to save his life he did that very night. Not satisfied with
this the mob then notified the colored postmistress that she must at once
resign her office. The “best citizens” of the town did what throughout the
South the “best citizens” of the type you praise almost always do in such
emergencies, what your Charleston friends have invariably and at all times
done in such emergencies, that is they “deprecated” the conduct of the mob
and said it was “not representative of the real southern feeling”; and then
added that to save trouble the woman must go! She went. The mayor and
the sheriff notified her and me that they could not protect her if she came
back. I shut up the office for the remainder of her term. It was all I could do
and the least I could do. Now Dan, so far from there being any reprobation
of this infamy the entire South, led by your friends in Charleston, screamed
for months over the outrage of depriving the citizens of Indianola of their
mail simply because they let a mob chase away by threats of murder a
worthy, refined, educated and hard-working colored woman whom every
reputable citizen of that town had endorsed for the position* This is at
present the typical southern attitude toward the best type of colored men or
colored women; and absolutely all I have been doing is to ask, not that the
average Negro be allowed to vote, not that mnety-five per cent of the
Negroes be allowed to vote, not that there be Negro domination in any shape
or form, but that these occasionally good, well-educated, intelligent and
honest colored men and women be given the pitiful chance to have a little
reward, a little respect, a little regard, if they can by earnest useful work
succeed in winning it The best people in the South I firmly believe are with
me in what I have done. In Trinity College in North Carolina, in Roanoke
College, Virginia, here and there elsewhere, they have stood up manfully for
just what 1 have done . The bishops of the Episcopal church have for the
most part stood up for it. The best southern judges have stood up for it
In so standing up all of these college professors and students, bishops and
occasional businessmen have had to face the violent and angry assaults of the
majority; and in Lady Baltwnore you give what strength you can to those

228

denouncing and opposing the men who are doing their best to bring a little
nearer the era of right conduct in the South.

Now Dan, I have written to you as I should only write to a dear friend
whose book is a power, and who has written about things as to which I think
I know a good deal, and as to which I hold convictions down to the very
bottom of my heart.

Can’t you get on here soon and spend a night or two* I will get Root and
Bob Bacon and Taft to come to dmner and perhaps Moody, and I will tell
you m full detail some of the various facts about the North and South on
which I base my beliefs.

With love to Mrs. Wister, Ever yours

P.S. Have you read Democracy , a novel published nearly thirty years
ago* Of course you have read Martin Chuzzlewit ? published over sixty years
ago. Each deals mainly with the society of the North; each makes any
number of statements which are true as isolated facts; and each would go to
show worse conditions than those you set forth. I think poorly of the
author of Democracy , whoever he or she may have been; but Dickens was
a great writer, and the American characters in Martin Chuzzlewit are types
that are true as well as amusing, and the book itself is valuable as a tract even
today, yet as a picture of the social life of the United States at the time
which you are tempted to idealize, it is false because it suppresses or slurs
over so much of the truth. Now in each of these books, as in yours, I eagerly
welcome the assault on what is evil; but I think that it hinders instead of
helping the effort to secure something like a moral regeneration if we get
the picture completely out of perspective by slurring over some facts and
overemphasizing others

David Graham Phillips has written a book called The Plum Tree . I only
read the first half. In it he portrays all politics as sordid, base and corrupt . 1
Sinclair, the socialist, has written a book called The Jungle , about the labor
world in Chicago. He portrays the results of the present capitalistic system
in Chicago as on one uniform level of hideous horror. Now there is very
much which needs merciless attack both in our politics and m our industrial
and social life. There is much need for reform; but I do not think the two
books in question, though they have been very widely read and are very pop-
ular and have produced a great effect, have really produced a healthy effect,
simply because, while they set forth many facts which are true, they convey
an entirely false impression when they imply that these are the only facts that
are true and that the whole life is such as they represent it. Of course Lady
Baltimore is the work of a master and so cannot be compared with either of
these two books, but as a tract on the social life of the North as compared
with the North’s past and the South’s present, it really seems to me to be
about as inaccurate as they are; and what is more, it produces the very feel-
ing which makes men followers of David Graham Phillips, the Hearst

1 See No. 3912 for a revision of Roosevelt’s view of The Plum Tree .

229

writer, and of Sinclair, the socialist, and which makes them feel that there is
no use of trying to reform anything because everything is so rotten that the
whole social structure should either be let alone or destroyed.

3900 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Absolutely private and confidential Washington, April 28, 1906

My dear Reid: Now you are about to receive a quarto-volume from me and
I hope it will not daunt you. But there has been so much that is amusing and
interesting, and indeed so much that has been of importance, in the queer
negotiations wherein I have been the medium between France and Germany
during the past year that it is possibly worth your while to know of them
a little in detail.

On March 6th, 1905, Sternberg came to me with a message from the
Kaiser to ask me to join with the Kaiser in informing the Sultan of Morocco
that he ought to reform his government, and that if he would do so we
would stand behind him for the open door and would support him in any
opposition he might make to any particular nation (that is to France) which
sought to obtain exclusive control of Morocco. On the following day he
submitted to me a memorandum to the same effect, stating that the Emperor
regarded France and Spain as “a political unity,” who wished to divide up
Morocco between themselves and debar her markets to the rest of the world,
and that if Spain should occupy Tangiers and France the Hinterland they
would be able to dominate the roads to the Near and Far East. I answered
this by stating that I did not see my way clear to interfere in the matter, for
I did not think that our interests were sufficiently great, but expressed my
friendliness to Germany generally and my expectation and belief that her
policy was one for peace. I had some further interviews with Speck, and on
April 5th he wrote me again. This time he maintained that England and
France were allies; that he must insist upon a conference of the powers to
settle the fate of Morocco. In this memorandum he (the Emperor) stated
that Germany asked for no gains in Morocco, she simply defended her
interests and stood for equal rights to all nations there. He then added, in
Speck’s words: “Besides this she is bound to think of her national dignity.
This makes it necessary for her to point out to France that her national
interests cannot be disposed of without asking her for her consent and co-
operation.

“Since 35 years Germany has been obliged to keep an armed defensive
towards France. As soon as France discovers that Germany meekly submits
to her bullying, we feel sure that she will become more aggressive in other
quarters and we do not consider a demand for a revision of the Treaty of
Frankfort to be far off.” The Emperor evidently felt safe in the position of
defiance to France, which he had already adopted, because as he (Speck)

230

said: “According to the information which the Emperor has received he
feels sure that England’s aid to France in the matter will not go beyond a
‘diplomatic support.’ This, he hopes, will keep France isolated, and, with or
without a conference, he expects that the status quo in Morocco can be
peacefully improved and, above all, the rights of all foreigners safeguarded
there.” On April 13th Speck wrote me again, saying that the Italian Govern-
ment had informed the Emperor of their sympathy with his position, and of
their conviction that France would “only continue her aggressive policy in
Morocco, aimed at all non-French interests, if she feels sure that England
will stand by her and eventually shows herself ready to back her up by force
of arms.” To this the Emperor added that he believed that the attitude of
England would depend upon the attitude of the Umted States, and asked us
to tell England that we thought there should be a conference. On April 25th
he wrote me again, saying that the Emperor would be most grateful to me
if I would intimate to England that I would like to see her and Germany in
harmony in their dealings with Morocco. On May 13th he sent me another
memorandum, insisting that there must be a general conference and com-
plaining of England for opposing this conference, and stating that the latter
would only drop her opposition if I would give her a hint to do so. The
Emperor also in this memorandum stated, with a distinct note of self-right-
eousness, that he had refused invitations from France to come to an agree-
ment with her alone, because he was disinterestedly championing the cause
of the world at large. He then used these words: “The Emperor states that
his policy is absolutely clear and simple. In spite of special advantages offered
to him he stands by the treaty rights granted to all. Only if he should dis-
cover that he should receive no support from the interested treaty powers
in connection with the open door and the conference, he would be forced to
think of Germany alone. Only then — and not before — he would have to
choose between the possibility of a war with France and the examining of
those conditions which France may have to propose, so as to avoid a war.”
During the rest of this letter Speck describes the Emperor’s indignation with
the King of England and with the British Government, and expresses the
Emperor’s belief that France, England and Russia possibly with the co-
operation of Japan were aiming at the partition of China. This last supposi-
tion seemed to me mere lunacy, if it was put forward with sincerity. The
comic feature of the memorandum, considering the closeness of Germany’s
relations with Russia at the outset of the Russo-Japanese war, was that the
Emperor complained that France, ignoring all the laws of nations, had offered
the Russian fleet a safe retreat in the harbors of Indo-China, and had pro-
vided that fleet with means to prepare its attack, which action might result
in a turn of the war in favor of Russia. The Emperor added:

On the other hand the Emperor feels sure that England will drop this or any
other plan, if she finds out in time that it would be opposed by America.

The violent renewal of the anti-German movement in England seems to be

231

caused by Germany’s attempt to balk any coalition of Powers directed against
China after the conclusion of peace.

On May 29th the Emperor stated that both England and France had
offered to give Germany a sphere of interest in Morocco if she would accept
it and let the question remain quiet, but that the Emperor had refused, stating
that he was for the maintenance “of the status quo and for the open door
and for equal treatment of all nations whose rights were established by
treaties.” (It will be seen later on how comically the Emperor tried to go
back on this proposition.) Two days later Speck sent me another memo-
randum from the Emperor, stating that he regarded the Morocco question
not as an isolated question, but as one which might develop into a starting
point for a new grouping of the powers. He again, in this memorandum,
threatened a war with France, using the following language. “If England is
successful in causing the refusal of France to join m a conference to settle
the Morocco question, Germany will have to choose between war with
France or between an understanding with France with regard to Morocco,
which repeatedly has been sought for by France. Such an understanding, the
Emperor believes, is to form the basis of a new grouping of European powers
to which he is strongly opposed, being most anxious to maintain m the
future his attitude, especially with regard to the Far East, as clearly explained
to you. Everything he thinks depends on the attitude you may consider fit
to take towards a conference of the treaty powers to settle the Morocco
question. England is the only power which opposes such a conference,
though it seems sure she will chop her objections m case you should partici-
pate in the conference.” The day after I received yet another letter from
Speck, showing that the United States had signed the convention of Madrid
with reference to Morocco, m 1880.

Meanwhile my own attitude can be best gathered by the following two
letters which I sent while on my bear hunt, one to Taft, who was then acting
as Secretary of State in Hay’s absence, and the other to Speck:

Confidential

Dictated by the President in camp, East Divide Creek, Colorado.

Glenwood Sprmgs, Colorado,
April 20, 1905.

Dear Will:

I think you are keeping the lid on in great shape! Apparently the Santo
Domingo pot is not bubbling much at present, but we have troubles enough else-
where.

The Kaiser’s pipe dream this week takes the form of Morocco. Speck has writ-
ten me an urgent appeal to sound the British Government and find out whether
they intend to back up France in gobbling Morocco. I have told him to see you
and lay the matter definitely before you. There was one part of the Kaiser’s letter
which he asked me to treat as strictly confidential, and I do not know whether
Speck will tell you about it or not. In any event, my theory is that if Sir Mortimer,
or O’Bryne (or whatever the First Secretary’s name is) is in any rational mood

232

and you think the nice but somewhat fat-witted British intellect will stand it,
that you tell them just about what I am going to write. I do not feel that as a
Government we should interfere in the Morocco matter. We have other fish to
fry and we have no real mterest m Morocco. I do not care to take sides between
France and Germany in the matter. At the same time if I can find out what
Germany wants I shall be glad to oblige her if possible, and I am sincerely anxious
to bring about a better state of feeling between England and Germany. Each
Nation is working itself up to a condition of desperate hatred of the other; . . .
each from sheer fear of the other. The Kaiser is dead sure that England intends
to attack him. The English Government and a large share of the English people
are equally sure that Germany intends to attack England. Now, m my view of
this action of Germany in embroiling herself with France over Morocco is proof
positive that she has not the slightest intention of attacking England. I am very
clear m my belief that England utterly overestimates, as well as misestimates,
Germany’s singleness of purpose, by attributing to the German Foreign Office
the kind of power of continuity of aim which it had from ’64 to ’71. 1 do not wish
to suggest anything whatever as to England’s attitude m Morocco, but if we can
find out that attitude with propriety and inform the Kaiser of it, I shall be glad to
do so. But I have to leave a large discretion m your hands in this matter, for if
we find that it will make the English suspicious — that is, will make them think
we are acting as decoy ducks for Germany * — why we shall have to drop the busi-
ness Fortunately, you and I play the diplomatic game exactly alike, and I should
advise your being absolutely frank with both Speck and the British people along
the lines I have indicated, unless you have counter suggestions to make. Re-
member, however, that both parties are very suspicious. You remember the King’s
message to me through Harry White and his earnest warning to me that I should
remember that England was our real friend and that Germany was only a make-
believe friend. In just the same way the Germans are always insisting that England
is really on the pomt of entering into a general coalition which would practically
be mimical to us — an act which apart from moral considerations I regard the
British Government as altogether too flabby to venture upon.

x x x x x x

Ever yours,

Theodore Roosevelt
L.

P.S. If you deem it wise to see the British Ambassador at all, do be careful to
explain to him that we are taking sides neither with France nor Germany, but
that we would like to convey Germany’s request for information to England,
and that we are acting in thus conveying it simply from a desire to make things
as comfortable between England and Germany as possible. X X X X

Dictated by the President in camp, East Divide Creek, Colorado.

Personal Glenwood Springs, Colorado,

April 20, 1905.

Dear Speck.

Your letter containing the Emperor’s communication about Morocco is the
first thing that has made me wish I was not off on a hunt, for I hardly know how
to arrange out here what the Emperor requests. As I told you before, I dislike
taking a position in any matter like this unless I fully intend to back it up, and
our interests in Morocco are not sufficiently great to make me feel justified in
entangling our Government in the matter. You do not have to be told by me
that I am already working in the most cordial agreement with the Emperor about
China and the Japanese-Russian war, while I have matters of my own in Santo

233

Domingo, Venezuela and Panama to which I must give attention and from which
I do not feel it right to be diverted, but I have told Taft substantially what you
have said in your letter excepting the portion about the communication from the
Italian Government which the Emperor requested me to treat as purely con-
fidential Will you take this letter at once to Secretary Taft, show it to him, and
tell him exactly how far you want us to go in sounding the British Government.
Meanwhile I shall write him, quoting the proposal of the Emperor as to our
sounding the British Government and shall suggest his finding out from Sir
Mortimer what the British Government’s views m the matter are. I do not think
I should go any further than this at present. I am sorry I am not in Washington,
for I should at once see the British Ambassador myself and let you know just how
things stood.

Thank Admiral von Tirpitz for the very interesting memorandum of the Navy.

x x x x x

Baron H. Sternberg,
German Ambassador,
Washington, D. C.

Sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt
per W.L.Jr.

At the end of May I came back to Washington, and found Jusserand and
Speck both greatly concerned lest there should be a war between France and
Germany. Both of them were sincerely anxious to avert such a possibility,
and each thought that his own Government ought to make concessions to
avoid the war. Speck, I firmly believe, did not approve of the action his
Government was taking, but of course was obliged loyally to back up its
position. Jusserand, on the other hand, sympathized absolutely with the
general French indignation with Germany, but felt that it was better to
yield so far as the conference was concerned, if it could be done honorably,
rather than have a war. I saw Sir Mortimer on the matter, but could get very
little out of him. He was bitter about Germany, and so far as he represented
the British Government it would appear that they were anxious to see
Germany humiliated by France’s refusal to enter a conference, and that
they were quite willing to face the possibility of war under such circum-
stances. I did not think this showed much valor on their part, although from
their point of view it was sagacious, as of course in such a war, where the
British and French fleets would be united, the German fleet could have done
absolutely nothing; while on land, where Germany was so powerful, it
would be France alone that would stand, and would have to stand, the brunt
of the battle. I desired to do anything I legitimately could for France; be-
cause I like France, and I thought her in this instance to be in the right; but
I did not intend to take any position which I would not be willing at all costs
to maintain.

On June 5th you telegraphed from London that Lansdowne had asked
for an indication of my views on the Morocco situation, and stated that he
regarded the proposal of joint action of the powers represented m Morocco

234

as unfortunate, and as possibly planned to embarrass France. About the same
time White cabled from Rome that the Italian Government evidently feared
the conference was inevitable unless France was able otherwise to pacify
Germany’s susceptibilities, but that the British Ambassador felt sure that
there would be no conference.

I suppose I need hardly say that the English, French and Italian repre-
sentatives all strenuously denied the statements as to the propositions which
Germany said their nations had made to her as regards her sphere of interest
in Morocco, etc. I did not regard the various matters in which there was this
contradiction as important; partly because I had not at any time credited the
three powers named with having made the several propositions they were
alleged by the German Government to have made.

On June i ith, the Kaiser, through Speck, sent me another memorandum,
running as follows:

June ii, 1905.

MEMORANDUM — (Morocco)

Mr. Rouvier 1 has indirectly informed the German Charge d’ Affaires in Paris
that England has made a formal offer to France to enter into an offensive and de-
fensive alliance with England which would be directed against Germany. At
present the leading statesmen of France are opposed to such an alliance, because
the majority of the members of the French Government still hope to come to a
satisfactory agreement with Germany. But it was emphasized, the time had arrived
for Germany to make up her mmd with regard to Morocco, otherwise France
would be forced to place herself in closer touch with England.

Indirectly Germany has been given to understand that the French Government
is desirous of giving her a portion of Morocco under the name of a “sphere of in-
terest,” France apportioning the greater part of Morocco to herself. Such an offer
Germany now cannot accept, as it was through the council of Germany that the
Sultan of Morocco placed himself on the ground of the conference of Madrid.
Hence Germany is pledged by honor to stand by the Sultan. — “Here,” says the
Emperor, “is a curious case. — we may be forced into war not because we have
been grabbing after people’s land, but because we refuse to take it.”

My people are sure that England would now back France by force of arms in
a war against Germany, not on account of Morocco, but on account of Germany’s
policy m the Far East. The combmed naval forces of England and France would
undoubtedly smash the German navy and give England, France, Japan and Russia
a more free hand in the Far East, and Russia might try to cede a portion of China
to Japan as a war indemnity, instead of parting with the island of Sakhalin. 2 The
previous destruction of the German navy undoubtedly would be welcomed by
these Powers.

As regards a conference to be held in Morocco, the British Government has
asked for time to consider the question. The Emperor feels sure that if you could
give a hint now in London and in Paris that, all things put together, you would

1 Roosevelt, in a note at the bottom of the page, commented “who has shown him-
self distinctly friendly to Germany and has been opposmg Mr. Delcasse.”

2 Roosevelt, m a note at the bottom of the page, commented* “Russia has lately been
using the Morocco question as a means to bring Russia, France & Germany together,
undoubtedly for her policy in the Far East.”

235

consider a conference as the most satisfactory means to bring the Morocco ques-
tion to a peaceful solution, you would render the peace of the world another
great service, without encountering any risk. In case you should not feel inclined
to take this step the Emperor believes that your influence could prevent England
from joining a Franco-German war, started by the aggressive policy of France in
Morocco.

As to the present attitude m France towards the Morocco question a marked
change is noticeable since the retirement of Mr. Delcasse. Voices are now heard
which consider a conference not only as the most legal, but also as the safest way
to clear a situation which has been created by the reckless statesmanship of Mr.
Delcasse,

It really did look as if there might be a war, and I felt in honor bound
to try to prevent the war if I could, m the first place, because I should have
felt such a war to be a real calamity to civilization; and m the next place, as
I was already trying to bring about peace between Russia and Japan, I felt
that a new conflict might result in what would literally be a world confla-
gration, and finally for the sake of France. Accordingly, I took active hold
of the matter with both Speck and Jusserand, and after a series of com-
munications with the French Government, through Jusserand, got things
temporarily straightened up, Jusserand repeated to his government substan-
tially just what I said. I told him that as chief of state I could not let America
do anything quixotic, but that I had a real sentiment for France; that I would
not advise her to do anything humiliating or disgraceful, but that it was
eminently wise to avoid a war if it could be done by adopting a course
which would save the Emperor’s self-esteem, that for such purpose it was
wise to help him save his face. I urged upon the French Government, m the
first place, the great danger of war to them, and the fact that British assist-
ance could avail them very, very little in the event of such a war, because
France would be in danger of invasion by land, and m the next place, I
pointed out that if there were a conference of the powers France would
have every reason to believe that the conference would not sanction any
unjust attack by Germany upon French interests, and that if all the powers,
or practically all the powers, in the conference took an attitude favorable
to France on such a point it would make it well-nigh impossible for Ger-
many to assail her. I explained that I would not accept the invitation of the
conference unless France was willing, and that if I went in I would treat
both sides with absolute justice, and would, if necessary, take very strong
grounds against any attitude of Germany which seemed to me unjust and
unfair. At last, the French Government informed me through Jusserand that
it would agree to the conference. At this time I was having numerous inter-
views with both Jusserand and Speck. With Speck I was on close terms, with
Jusserand, who is one of the best men I have ever met, and whose country
was in the right on this issue, I was on even closer terms. On the 23d of June
he received from the French Minister of Foreign Affairs a dispatch running
in part as follows;

236

Au cours de ses derniers entretiens avec vous, le President Roosevelt a conclu
que, si mjuste que serait, de la part de l’Allemagne, une declaration de guerre dans
les circonstances presentes, elle etait possible, qu’il fallait l’eviter, user de concilia-
tion et que, parmi les concessions que nous pournons faire, une Conference serait
sans doute un momdre mal.

En communiquant au President notre reponse a la note allemande, veuillez lui
dire que ce sont ses reflexions, ses conseils qui Font mspiree. Nous avions d’abord
pense qu’il sufflrait de dissiper les erreurs repandues au sujet de notre action au
Maroc et de montrer qu’elle ne menace aucun interet. Nous avons ete plus loin et
nous nous sommes montres prets a nous rallier, au besoin, a 1 ’idee d’une Conference,
malgre les serieuses objections qu’elle souleve.

Mais nen n’est venu prouver encore que, meme sur ces bases, un accord pourrait
s’etablir. II est jusqu’a present impossible de determiner avec certitude le but
immediat de l’Allemagne. Son Ambassadeur nous afflrme que, pour elle, il n’y a
dans tout cela qu’une question de forme et d’etiquette, qu’il s’agit seulement de
connaitre le droit des Puissances signataires de la Convention de Madrid, qu’il
sufflrait, pour la consacrer, d’un regime transitoire d’une tres courte duree et
qu’ensuite la France reprendrait la realisation de son programme. Mais, en restrei-
gnant amsi la portee de Faction allemande, le Prince Radolin 3 se defend de faire, au
nom de son Gouvernement, aucune proposition autre que celle d’une Conference;
le reste n’est, dit-il, qu’une deduction qu’il tire lui-meme de la nature des choses
et il evite de faire connaitre l’attitude que le Gouvernement allemand prendra
devant la Conference. En meme temps, l’Empereur nous fait dire a Paris que
routes les forces de l’Allemagne sont dernere le Sultan du Maroc, et il tient vis-a-
vis de nous a Washington, a Rome et a Madrid le langage le plus menacant.

M. Roosevelt peut conjurer ce danger. Dites lui que F Autorite exceptionnelle
qui s’attache a ses conseils et qu’il doit, non pas seulement a ses fonctions, mais a
son caractere, a son esprit de decision et de justice, a sa claire intelligence des
interets les plus eleves, le qualifie au plus haut degre pour mtervemr en faveur du
maintien de la paix. En s’adressant a lui avec insistance l’Empereur Fa mis en
mesure de prendre 1’initiative que nous attendons de son amitie.

On the 25th of June he sent a despatch to the French Minister of Foreign
Affairs, running in part as follows

Je suis revenu, cette nuit, aupres du President Roosevelt, sur les raisons d’une
intervention pressante de sa part en vue d’eviter la rupture dont l’Allemagne parait
vouloir nous menacer. Je me sms servi, pour le mettre au courant de la situation,
des indications contenues dans vos deux telegrammes.

Mes instances ont recu l’accueil la plus favorable Le President m’a declare qu’il
aurait ce soir avec le Baron Sternberg un entretien du ton le plus grave, dans lequel
il insisterait, d’abord sur ce que l’Empereur se doit a Im-meme et sur ce a quoi
Foblige le souci de son renom devant l’histoire, nul ne saurait, ni comprendre m
pardonner desormais, les guerres engagees pour des motifs frivoles. Il insistera sur
le succes tres real remporte par la diplomatic allemande et sur notre adhesion a son
projet de Conference dans des conditions sur le detail desquelles il est impossible
de ne pas s’entendre. Il fera, d’autre part, allusion aux nsques a encourir; car, m’a
repete le President, ce que je vous ai dit de l’opinion de nos experts sur votre
armee n’est pas invoque par moi simplement pour les besoins de la cause, c’est bien
la ce qu’il pensent d’elle et une victoire allemande n’est aucunement assuree. 11
parlera enfin des appuis, redoutables pour l’Allemagne, qui, sans nul doute ne nous
feraient pas defaut “Je voudrais etre sur que mes paroles seront efflcaces, a ajoute

3 Prince Radolin, then German ambassador to France

237

M. Roosevelt; je ne le suis malheureusement pas; mais, en tout cas, vous pouvez
etre assure qu’elles seront aussi energiques que possible en faveur (Tune entente
amiable et que je ne negligerai rien de ce qui me paraitra pouvoir y servir.”

J’ai fait part au President des sentiments que Votre Excellence m’avait charge
de lui exprimer. II n’a pas voulu me laisser achever, disant que ce qu’il faisait etait
trop naturel pour menter aucun remerciement. J’ai ajoute* le telegramme que j’ai
regu de M. le President du Conseil marquait beaucoup de gratitude, mais pas la
momdre surprise. “Voila,” a reparti le President, “le vrai compliment qui me fait
plaisir.”

On June 18th, Speck wrote to me, saying that the Emperor greatly
appreciated the change which was noticed in the policy of France since the
action I had taken as regards the Morocco question, addmg, “Your diplo-
matic activity with regard to France, the Emperor says, has been the greatest
blessing to the peace of the world.” I wrote to Speck the following three
letters, all of which I showed to Jusserand before I sent them, as I did not
wish there to be any suspicion of double-dealing on my part, and Jusserand
is a man of such excellent judgment, so sound and cool-headed, and of so
high a standard of personal and professional honor that I could trust him
completely. Indeed, it was only because both Jusserand and Sternberg were
such excellent men, that I was enabled to do anything at all in so difficult and
delicate a matter. I could only have acted with men I was sure of. With
such a tricky creature as the Russian, Cassini, for instance, I could have done
absolutely nothing; and little or nothing with amiable Sir Mortimer.

My three letters were as follows:

Personal White House,

Washington, June 20, 1905.

Dear Speck*

Pray thank His Majesty and say that if I have been of any use in keeping the
peace I am of course more than glad. I shall be in Massachusetts for the next two
days, but will see you Friday or Saturday.

Sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt.

Baron H. Sternberg,

The German Ambassador,

Deer Park, Maryland.

White House,

Washington, June 23, 1905.

My dear Mr. Ambassador:

I hope to see you at nine Sunday evening. Meanwhile, pray communicate to
His Majesty that in accordance with the suggestion I made to Ambassador
Jusserand in pursuance of the letter you sent me, the French Government informs
me unofficially through the Ambassador that it has ceased its opposition to a
conference of the powers on Morocco. It seems as a matter of course that a pro-
gram of the conference would be needed m advance m accordance with the usual
custom m such cases. I suggest that that be arranged between Germany and
France.

Let me congratulate the Emperor most warmly on his diplomatic success in

238

securing the assent of the French Government to the holding of this conference,
I had not believed that the Emperor would be able to secure this assent and to
bring about this conference, from which undoubtedly a peaceful solution of all
the troubles will come. I need not say to you that I consider such peaceful solution
as vitally necessary to the welfare of the world at this time, and in view of its
having been secured by the Emperor’s success m obtaining this conference, I wish
again to express my hearty congratulation. It is a diplomatic triumph of the first
magnitude.

Faithfully yours,

Theodore Roosevelt.

Baron H. Sternberg,

The German Ambassador.

White House,

Washington.

June 2 5, 1905.

My dear Mr. Ambassador

I have received from M. Jusserand the following extract from a telegram sent
to him by M. Rouvier.

“You reported to me your conversation with President Roosevelt who asked
you to inform us that, according to his views, much prudence should be used
m present circumstances, and that we ought to consider the idea of a confer-
ence as a concession we might make ... Be so good as to tell the President that
his reflections and advice have received from us due consideration and have
caused us to take the resolution we have just adopted. We had first thought
that, m order to remove the erroneous impressions held about our action in
Morocco, it would be enough to show that it threatens no interests whatsoever.
But now we have gone further, and have declared that we are ready to accept
a conference, in spite of the serious reasons we had to entertain objections
against such a project.”

I shall ask, Mr. Ambassador, that in forwarding this mformation to His Majesty
you explam that it is of course confidential.

I need hardly tell you how glad I was to secure this information from the
French Ambassador. As you know, I was at first extremely reluctant to do any-
thing m the matter which might savor of officious interference on my part; and I
finally determined to present the case to the French Government only because I
wished to do anything I properly could do which the Emperor asked, and of
course also because I felt the extreme importance of doing everything possible
to maintain the peace of the world. As you know, I made up my mind to speak to
France rather than to England, because it seemed to me that it would be useless to
speak to England, for I felt that if a war were to break out, whatever might hap-
pen to France, England would profit immensely, while Germany would lose her
colonies and perhaps her fleet. Such being the case I did not feel that anything I
might say would carry any weight with England, and instead I made a very ear-
nest request of France that she should do as the Emperor desired and agree to hold
the conference. The French Government have now done just what at His
Majesty’s request I urged should be done. Now in turn I most earnestly and with
all respect urge that His Majesty show himself satisfied and accept this yielding to
his wishes by France I trust that the Emperor understands that I would not for
any consideration advise him to do anything that would be agamst the interest or
the honor either of himself or of his people any more than I would counsel such
an action as regards my own country, and I say conscientiously that I am advising

239

just the conduct that I would myself take under like circumstances; and I venture
to give the advice at all only because, as I took the action I did on the Emperor’s
request, it seems but right that m reporting the effect of this action I should give
my own views thereon. I say with all possible emphasis that I regard this yielding
by France, this concession by her which she had said she could not make and
which she now has made, as representing a genuine triumph for the Emperor’s
diplomacy, so that if the result is now accepted it will be not merely honorable for
Germany but a triumph. You know that I am not merely a sincere admirer and
well-wisher of Germany, but also of His Majesty. I feel that he stands as the
leader among the sovereigns of today who have their faces set toward the future,
and that it is not only of the utmost importance for his own people but of the
utmost importance for all mankind that his power and leadership for good should
be unimpaired. I feel that now, having obtained what he asks, it would be most
unfortunate even to seem to raise questions about minor details, for if under such
circumstances the dreadful calamity of war should happen, I fear that his high
and honorable fame might be clouded. He has won a great triumph; he has obtained
what his opponents m England and France said he never would obtain, and what
I myself did not believe he could obtain. The result is a striking tribute to him
personally no less than to his nation, and I earnestly hope that he can see his way
clear to accept it as the triumph it is.

With high regard,

Sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

Baron H. Sternberg,

German Ambassador.

There was, however, much higgling as to exactly what should be discussed at
the conference; and both Jusserand and Speck came to me to say they were
still on the verge of seeing the negotiations broken off. Finally I made a pen-
cil memorandum as follows: “The two Governments consent to go to the
conference with no program, and to discuss there all questions in regard to
Morocco, save of course where either is in honor bound by a previous agree-
ment with another power.” I gave a copy of this memorandum to Jusserand
and the memorandum itself to Speck, and after they had transmitted it to
their respective governments, I received the assent of both governments to
the proposition. I explained to both that I did not care to appear m the
matter, and that no publicity whatever would be given by me, or by any of
our representatives, to what I had done, and I thought it far better that it
should take the shape of an agreement freely entered into by themselves.
You may remember that not a hint of any kind got out throughout the
whole of last summer as to my taking any part in this Morocco business.

Jusserand forwarded my memorandum in a dispatch to his home govern-
ment of June 28th, which ran in part as follows:

J’ai rappele les graves motifs que nous avions pour ecarter toute idee d’une
Conference sans un programme prealable, ou du moins sans une entente indiquant
ce a quoi nous pouvions nous attendre et nous garantissant, en particulier, que des
engagements mternationaux solennels, et depuis longtemps connus de tous ne
seraient pas remis en question. On ne peut nous demander de renier notre signa-
ture Avec un souveram du temperament de Guillaume II, qui vient de donner,

240

par les textes memes dont il a mum le President, des preuves si inquietantes de son
manque de moderation et meme d’exactitude, nous sommes plus particulierement
tenus a la prudence qu’avec aucun autre.

C’est a la suite de ces remarques que le President a pris sur sa table un morceau
de papier et a cherche quelque formule pouvant etre acceptee par les deux pays et
qui^respecterait a la fois l’orgueil de Guillaume II et nos droits. Je reproduis ci-
apres le texte^de cette formule, qm a pu d’ailleurs, subir quelque legere modifica-
tion avant d’etre transmise, mais dont le sens general sera surement demeure le
meme “The two Governments consent to go to the Conference with no program
and to discuss there all questions m regard to Morocco, save, of course, where
either is m honour bound by a previous agreement to another power.”

Le President n’a nulle pretention que ce soit la une formule parfaite et 1m-
muable, mais il espere qu’elle pourrait peut-etre offrir un terrain d’entente et il Pa
fait en consequence, soumettre au Kaiser par le Baron de Sternberg dans l’apres-
midi de Dimanche II est certain que la portee d’un tel accord serait de mettre en
dehors de la discussion les avantages que nous nous sommes assures aupres de divers
pays etrangers. Car nous ne les avons obtenus que par le moyen de concessions
correspondantes, faites a leur profit, des maintenant irrevocables, et que nous
sommes tenus d’honneur de maintenir l’acceptation d’une formule de ce genre
serait done, moms le mot, la realisation du programme souhaite par nous.

On June 28th I received the following letter from Speck:

Deer Park, Md.,

June 28, 1905.

Dear Mr. President

I just received a telegram from Berlin which expresses highest satisfaction and
gratitude with regard to the latest step you undertook in the interest of the
Morocco conference.

The telegram repeats a wire from the German Ambassador at Paris who says
that Rouvier is having a most difficult time. Delcasse’s followers are trying hard
to force him to accept Delcasse’s colonial program, and England is making a fran-
tic effort to prevent the acceptance of the invitation to the conference by the
council of ministers which meets today. The Ambassador expresses hope that
Rouvier’s backing will be strong enough to pull him through. The Emperor has
requested me to tell you that in case during the coming conference differences of
opimon should arise between France and Germany, he, in every case, will be
ready to back up the decision which you should consider to be the most fair and
the most practical.

In doing this he wants to prove that the assistance which you have rendered to
Germany has been rendered in the interest of peace alone, and without any selfish
motives.

Believe me, Mr. President,

Yours most sincerely,

Sternberg.

To the President of the United States of America,

Sagamore Hill.

It was a couple of days after this that I received from both governments
the information that they had agreed on substantially the plan outlined in
my memorandum.

241

On July nth I received a letter from Jusserand, running m part as
follows*

I leave greatly comforted by the news concerning Morocco. The agreement
arrived at is m substance the one we had considered and the acceptance of which
you did so very much to secure. Letters just received by me from Paris show
that your beneficent influence at this grave juncture is deeply and gratefully felt.
They confirm also what I guessed was the case, that is that there was a point where
more yielding would have been impossible, everybody m France felt it, and people
braced up silently in view of possible greatest events.

A fortnight afterwards the Kaiser got uneasy again, and for some time
insisted upon the conference being held in Morocco, and upon Revoil not
being sent by France as a delegate Again I had to do some cabling to both
the French and German Governments, but finally the Kaiser’s objections
were removed. I had urged Jusserand not to let his people boast or be dis-
agreeable and try to humiliate the Kaiser in connection with the conference,
because the important point was for them to get the kernel of the nut, and
they did not have to consider the shell. On August 9th Jusserand wrote me
expressing the thanks of his Government for what I had done, the German
Foreign Office thanked me by cable.

After this, trouble ceased as far as I was concerned, until the conference
met at Algeciras. Soon after the conference opened I began to have a suc-
cession of visits from Speck and from Jusserand. Jusserand generally gave me
his messages verbally, Speck submitted them in writing. Loyal though Speck
was to his Government, both Root and I became convinced that down m
his heart the honest, brave little gentleman did not really believe Germany
was acting as she should act. The attitude of France, as represented by the
French representatives at Algeciras, seemed to be more reasonable; but I
was entirely sure of France only when I could act directly through Jus-
serand, who rang true under any and all circumstances. It would have been a
good thing if I could have kept in touch with England through Durand. But
Root and I, and for the matter of that Jusserand and Speck also, have abso-
lutely given up any effort to work with Durand at all. He seems to have a
brain of about eight-guinea-pig-power. Why, under Heaven the English
keep him here I do not know 1 If they do not care for an Ambassador, then
abolish the embassy; but it is useless to have a worthy creature of mutton-
suet consistency like the good Sir Mortimer.

Germany sought to impress us with the fact that all the other powers but
England were in her favor. We heard, however, both from Russia and Italy,
that they thought the German position was wrong, and were anxious that
we should do something to prevent Germany from obtaining a sphere of
influence in Morocco. We became convinced that Austria was a mere cat’s
paw for Germany, and that Germany was aiming m effect at the partition of
Morocco, which was the very reverse of what she was claiming to desire.
She first endeavored to secure a port for herself, and then a separate port,

242

nominally for Holland or Switzerland, which we were convinced would,
with the adjacent Hinterland, become in effect German. The French said
they would not yield on these points, and, as you know, it looked as if the
conference would come to nothing, and that there would then be the possi-
bility of trouble between France and Germany. Our view was that the
interests of France and Spain in Morocco were far greater than those of
other powers. Finally we took the matter up by correspondence with
Germany, as follows, Jusserand being kept informed of what we were doing:

Department of State,

No. 333. Washington, February 19, 1906.

Excellency

The President has been keeping in mind the suggestion of your memorandum
of January 29th that the United States should propose “to entrust the Sultan of
Morocco with the organization of the police forces within his Domains and to
allow him certain funds, and to establish an international control with regard to
the management of these funds, and the carrying out of the whole plan.”

Our advices from Algeciras indicate that the time has been reached when such
a proposal should be made, if at all, and also that to be effective it should now be
somewhat more specific in regard to the nature of the international control.

If it is acceptable to Germany, the President will make the proposal suggested
with the following details, which should, perhaps, be called modifications, but
which he does not consider to mterfere with the accomplishment of the end
Germany had m view in securing the conference. He w T ill propose:

1. That the orgamzation and maintenance of police force m all the ports be
entrusted to the Sultan, the men and officers to be Moors.

2. That the money to maintain the force be furnished by the proposed
international bank, the stock of which shall be allotted to all the Powers in equal
shares (except for some small preference claimed by France, which he considers
immaterial).

3 That duties of instruction, discipline, pay and assisting in management and
control be entrusted to French and Spanish officers and non-commissioned officers,
to be appointed by the Sultan on presentation of names by their Legations.

That the senior French and Spamsh instructing officers report annually to
the Government of Morocco, and to the Government of Italy, the Mediterranean
Power, which shall have the right of inspection and verification, and to demand
further reports m behalf of and for the information of the Powers. The expense of
such inspection, etc., etc , to be deemed a part of the cost of police maintenance.

4. That full assurances be given by France and Spain, and made obligatory upon
all their officers who shall be appointed by the Sultan, for the open door, both as
to trade, equal treatment and opportunity in competition for public works and
concessions.

The foregoing draft has been carefully framed with reference to the existing
situation at Algeciras, so as to give it a form which would make concessions from
the French position as easy as possible, and the President thinks that it conserves
the principle of the open door without unduly recognizing the claims which rest
upon proximity and preponderance of trade interests. He thinks it is fair, and
earnestly hopes that it may receive the Emperor’s approval.

Accept, Excellency, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.

Elihu Root.

243

His Excellency

Baron Speck von Sternberg,
etc., etc., etc.

Imperial German Embassy,

Washington, February 22, 1906.

Dear Mr. President

The Emperor has requested me to express to you his hearty thanks for your
offer to mediate in the Morocco question. He especially appreciates that you will
only act as mediator in agreement with him.

He fully agrees with your views on points 1, 2 and 4 and considers it a sound
idea that the funds for the mamtenance of the police forces should be paid out of
the State Bank of Morocco, to be founded, and that all powers can equally partici-
pate in this bank. The question of granting to France a slight preference he thinks
might be discussed.

According to point 3, only French and Spanish officers and noncommissioned
officers are to be selected. This proposal covers in the main the last French
proposal.

Though the Emperor felt unable to accept this proposal, it has been subjected
to another close examination as soon as your offer of mediation had been received.
But this has not been able to convince him that a settlement on such lines could
be considered in harmony with the principle accepted by the conference that all
powers are to receive equal treatment.

According to the proposal the French and Spanish officers shall not be freely
chosen by the Sultan, but be named by their respective legations. They are to be
placed m charge of the drill, the discipline and the pay of the police forces of
Morocco, and they are also to participate m their administration and control. This
would place the police forces entirely into their hands, and the police organiza-
tion would be tantamount to a Franco-Spamsh double mandate and mean a
monopoly of these two countries, which would heavily curtail the political and
the economic positions of the other nations.

The Emperor is of the opinion that the Sultan should be permitted a free choice
among the other nations. This would certainly not exclude such modifications
which should be considered as practical. For instance it might be possible to allow
the Sultan to choose the officers among those nations which are participating in
the new State bank, hence have greater interests in Morocco. It could be further
stipulated, in case France should fear that under the present conditions the Sultan
might favor German officers, that at least four different nationalities should be
taken into consideration m an equal manner. Ultimately, so as to acknowledge the
special rights of France in Morocco, the Sultan might place the police control in
Tangiers, and perhaps in some other port, entirely m the hands of French officers.
In all the other ports officers of various nations would co-operate.

As to the uniformity of the whole of the police force it would not seem
difficult to establish a uniformity in organization and armament by issuing regula-
tions.

In case it should be possible to widen your proposal for mediation according
to the above suggestions, Germany would gladly negotiate on this new basis and
the Emperor would be highly gratified if you should be pleased to further offer
your mediation.

Believe me, Mr. President,

Yours most sincerely,
Sternberg.

2 44

To the President of the
United States of America,

Washington, D. C.

No. 342 March 7, 1906.

Excellency.

May I ask you to transmit to the German Emperor a message from the Presi-
dent, which is as follows

“I have given most earnest thought to Your Majesty’s comments on the sug-
gestion contained in Mr. Root’s letter of February 19th, but I cannot bring myself
to feel that I ought to ask France to make further concessions than the arrange-
ment suggested m that letter would require. This being so, I would gladly drop
the subject in which our traditional policy of abstention from the political affairs
of Europe forbids the United States to take sides. I feel, however, that the events
which led to the Conference at Algeciras forbid me to omit any effort within my
power to promote a settlement of differences.

“By the request of Germany I urged France to consent to the Conference, giv-
ing her very strong assurances of my belief that a decision would be reached,
consonant with an impartial view of what is most fair and most practical. The
nature, the strength and the justification of these assurances may be realized by
referring to the terms of Baron Sternberg’s letter to me of June 28, 1905, which

said . ,

‘The Emperor has requested me to tell you that in case, during the coming
Conference, differences of opinion should arise between France and Germany, he,
in every case, will be ready to back up the decision which you should consider to
be the most fair and the most practical.

‘In doing this, he wants to prove that the assistance which you have rendered
to Germany has been rendered m the interest of peace alone, and without any

selfish motives.’ - t

“Under these circumstances, I feel bound to state to Your Majesty that 1 trunk
the arrangement indicated m the above-mentioned letter of February 19th is a
reasonable one, and most earnestly to urge Your Majesty to accept it. I do not
know whether France would accept it or not I think she ought to do so. I do not
think that she ought to be expected to go further. If that arrangement is made, the
Conference will have resulted in an abandonment by France of her claim to the
right of control m Morocco answerable only to the wo Powers with whom she
had made treaties and without responsibility to the rest of the world, and she wul
have accepted jointly with Spain a mandate from all the Powers, under responsi-
bility to all of them for the maintenance of equal rights and opportunities. And
the due observance of these obligations will be safeguarded by having vested in
another representative of all the Powers a right to have m their behalf full ana
complete reports of the performance of the trust, with the further right of verin-

caron and inspection. , - , ,

“I feel that if this arrangement be made, Germany will have accomplished the
declared object for her intervention in the affairs of Morocco and for the Con-
ference I feel such arrangement would be m very fact the evidence of the triumph
of German diplomacy in this matter Looking at the subject as I do, from this
standpoint of an observer friendly to both parties and having no possible interest
in the result, except the interest of peace, I see grave reasons to apprehend that 11
the Conference should fail because of Germany’s insisting upon pressing France
beyond the measure of concession described in this proposed arrangement, the
general opinion of Europe and America would be unfavorable, and Germany

245

would lose that increase of credit and moral power that the making of this
arrangement would secure to her, and might be held responsible, probably far
beyond the limits of reason, for all the evils that may come in the train of a dis-
turbed condition of affairs in Europe.

“As a rule parties to a past controversy looking back can see that they have
ascribed undue importance to matters of difference which were really unim-
portant. A disinterested spectator is often able to take such a view at the time. I
believe that I am taking such a view, that if the suggested arrangement can be
made none of the matters which Germany will not have secured by that are of any
real importance to her, and I most sincerely hope that Your Majesty may take this
view and throw upon France the responsibility for rejecting, if it is to be rejected,
the suggested arrangement.”

Accept, Excellency the renewed assurance of my highest consideration.

Elihtj Root.

His Excellency

Baron Speck von Sternberg,

etc., etc., etc. Imperial German Embassy,

Washington, D. C.

March 13, 1906.

Mr. President*

The Emperor’s answer to your letter transmitted by me on the 7th instant is
as follows*

“Mr. President

“I thank you for your repeated kind endeavors to bring about a solution,
satisfactory to all concerned, of the Morocco question. I highly appreciate it that
notwithstanding all difficulties you have co-operated m solving the differences. As
to the information of my ambassador, mentioned by you, I can only assure you,
Mr. President, that I am gladly willing to take your advice as a basis of an under-
standing. In this sense your proposition contained in Mr. Root’s letter of the 19th
ultimo, has been earnestly considered at once. In principle I consented to it, pro-
vided that it be given a form to meet the international side of the question.

“I have also given to your recent statements m all points my fullest attention
and entirely agree with you that a mandate given by the Conference to France
and Spain differs in a judicial sense essentially from any action on the part of
France based solely on special agreements with England and Spain. Such a mandate
would give to France a certain monopoly in Morocco which would prejudice
the economical equality of the other nations, if no sufficient international counter-
poise were created. This idea has been recognized in your proposal of mediation,
and doubt could only prevail as to the question whether the regulations of control,
proposed by you, would give an entirely sufficient guarantee from an international
point. In this respect I think the idea has been developed in a proposal of media-
tion brought forward by Austria-Hungary. This proposal almost covers yours. I
have therefore caused my representatives at Algeciras to be instructed to consent
in principle to the proposition of Austria-Hungary, and I am inclined to believe
that a satisfactory end of the Conference would be secured, if you, Mr. President,
would likewise give your consent to that proposition which seems to me to be an
acceptable development of your proposal.

(Signed) William”

The Austrian proposal has been accepted by the representatives of all other
powers, including Sir A. Nicolson, 4 the British representative, on 'account of its

* Roosevelt’s reference was to Sir Arthur Nicolson, the British ambassador to France

The letter press copy of this letter reads “E. Nicholson,” which in accordance with

246

distinct international character, as a basis for a definite unders tandin g at the Con-
ference. As this basis has now been reached it would seem a pity to cause further
postponement by a new proposal. The support of Austria’s mediation m Algeciras
and Pans would m the eyes of the Emperor appear as the most speedy way to
effect a solution of the Morocco question.

I may add that on March nth the German representative at Algeciras was in-
formed by all his colleagues, including the British and American, that after the
far-going concessions made by Germany during the sessions of last Saturday the
French opposition could not be justified. In this sense they have spoken to Mr.
Revoil

I have the honor to be, Mr. President,
Yours most smcerely,
Sternberg.

(Received from German Ambassador March 14, 1906.)

Giving way beyond the Austrian proposals would gravely endanger the open
door. The opposition lies with the mighty French banking interests which are
aiming at a monopolization of the resources of Morocco.

Department of State,

No. 347. Washington, March 17, 1906.

Excellency

It may be useful for me to restate m writing the answer of the United States,
already given to you orally, to the questions which you have asked regarding our
course upon the proposal made by Austria on the 8th instant in the Algeciras
Conference.

We do not approve that proposal. We regard it as an essential departure
from the principle declared by Germany and adhered to by the United States,
that all commercial nations are entitled to have the door of equal commercial
opportunity m Morocco kept open, and the corollary to that principle that no
one power ought to acquire such a control over the territory of Morocco as
to justify the belief that she might ultimately come to regard and treat that terri-
tory as her own, to the exclusion of others.

This view of international right was mterposed against the claim of France
to organize the police in Moroccan ports through the agency of her officers
alone. France has yielded to this view of international right to the extent of offer-
ing to become, jointly with Spam, the mandatory of all the powers for the
purpose of at once maintaining order and preserving equal commercial opportuni-
ties for all of them. It was further proposed that an officer of a third power,
acting in behalf of all the powers, should have the right of general inspection
for the purpose of keeping the powers advised whether their agents, France
and Spam, were observing the limits and performing the duties of their agency.

editorial procedure, has been altered to “A. Nicolson.” This is a minor pomt, not
worth mentioning, were it not for the fact that one biographer has pitched on the
false initial as evidence that Roosevelt was not “too familiar with the negotiations”
at Algeciras As presented m Pringle, Roosevelt , p. 394, the argument is not compell-
ing First it is easy to understand how the President might have missed a stenographic
error m a forty-two page letter Second, assuming the error was his, unfamiliarity
with Nicolson’s first name does not necessarily demonstrate unfamilianty with the
subject of Nicolson’s negotiations. Third, contrary to the biographer’s claim that
Roosevelt was “usually accurate about names,” he was in fact notoriously erratic m
his rendermg of them For him the twenty-second President of the United States
w T as usually Grover Cleaveland, while his brother-in-law emerges more often than not
as Douglass Robinson.

247

This arrangement seemed to us to accomplish the desired purpose. It seemed with
two mandatories jointly charged, no individual claim or possession or control
was likely to grow up, that, with the constant reminder of the general right
involved m the inspectorship, the duties of the agency were not likely to be
forgotten and it seemed that the proximity of France and Spain to Morocco,
and their special interest in having order maintained m that territory, made it
reasonable that they should be selected as the mandatories rather than any other
powers.

The Austrian proposal offers an alternative to the arrangement which I have
described It is that the eight Moroccan ports shall be distributed; that m four the
police shall be organized by the French, in three the police shall be organized
by the Spanish; and that in the eighth port the police shall be organized by the
Swiss or Dutch. This seems to us to provide for a potential partition of the terri-
tory in violation of the principle upon which we have agreed with Germany.
From our pomt of view all the reasons which existed against leaving to France
the control of all the ports exists agamst leavmg to France the control of some, to
Spain the control of some, and to Switzerland, either in its own interest or m the
mterests of any other powers, the control of one. The very fact of division of the
ports implies the existence of a special right on the part of the three countries
in the ports assigned to them respectively The immediate effect can only be
the creation of three separate spheres of influence, with inferior right and
opportumty on the part of all other powers And the nations to whom these
spheres are assigned may be expected in the ordinary course of events to enter
into complete control. We do not care whether the Inspector, if there shall be one,
is Italian or Swiss. We do not care whether he reports to his own Government,
or to the Corps Diplomatique in Tangier, or communicates the information he
obtams to the powers in any other way. We do consider that the distribution of
ports to separate single powers is wrong m principle and destructive of the
declared purpose of both Germany and the United States. If we had sufficient
interest m Morocco to make it worth our while, we should seriously object, on
our own account, to the adoption of any such arrangement.

We have not, however, any such substantial interest in Morocco as to lead
us to take that course. Our chief wish is to be of service m promoting a peaceable
settlement of the controversy which brought the Conference together. Under
the guidance of that wish we shall accept whatever arrangement the European
powers, represented at Algeciras, agree upon. If the agreement is upon the Aus-
trian proposal, or upon any modification of it which includes the principle of
distribution of ports, we shall regret what we deem to be the failure of the true
principle to which we have given our adherence. We still hope that there may
be no such result

Accept, Excellency, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.

Elihu Root.

His Excellency

Baron Speck von Sternberg,
etc., etc., etc.

Hotel Cambridge.

New York, March 19, 1906.

Dear Mr. President

I have the honor to inform you of the contents of a telegram, just received,
which is the answer to my telegram, forwarded after the conversation I had
with you on the situation at Algeciras

Sincere regret is expressed that the attitude of Germany should have lead to

certain misunderstandings. The Kaiser had suggested the conference so as to find
a peaceful way to solve the question of Morocco.

He appreciates the fundamental idea of your proposal co-operation of French
and Spanish officers to be about equally divided in each of the ports.

< He would readily join in any proposal at the conference which would con-
tain this mixed system and an inspector general to which France already has
agreed to m principle.

Germany abstains from entering into details, so as to prevent that these
should obscure the mam points. The telegram concludes in saying that the
immediate removal of all misunderstandings is far more important to Germany
than the whole Morocco affair.

Believe me, Mr. President, most
Sincerely yours,

Sternberg.

I call your attention to the last paragraph in this telegram of March 19th.
I had previously informed Speck, in a verbal conversation, that if the
Emperor persevered in rejecting our proposals and a breakup ensued, I
should feel obliged to publish the entire correspondence, and that I believed
that our people would feel a grave suspicion of Germany’s justice and good
faith; but that if the Emperor would yield to what seemed to me our very
fair proposals, I should not publish any of the correspondence, and would
endeavor in every way to give Germany full credit for what was done, and
with that in view would take an early opportunity to have him (Speck)
bring a delegation of German war veterans to see me, so that I might make a
public statement m praise of the emperor’s position and expressive of my
appreciation thereof, and of my hope that the relations between France and
Germany would become steadily more friendly. Two or three days after
the Emperor sent his cable saying he had yielded to our request, Speck
called upon me to say that the Emperor very earnestly desired that I would
make such public utterance. Accordingly I arranged for him to bring the
German veterans around, and I made them the following speech, which I
had previously gone over not only with Speck but with Jusserand:

I welcome you here, my fellow Americans, for among the many strains
that go to make up our composite race stock m this country, no strain has given
us better Americans than those who are of German birth or blood. It is our
peculiar pride as a nation that m this republic we have measurably realized the
ideal under which good citizens know no discrimination as between creed and
creed, birthplace and birthplace, provided only that whatever the man’s parentage
may have been, whatever the way in which he worships his Creator, he strives
m good faith to do his duty by himself and by his fellow man, and to show his
unflinching loyalty to our common country. In addition to thus greeting you my
fellow Americans of German birth, I wish also to greet the German citizens
present, the members of the German army, belonging to the reserve of that army,
and to welcome them here, especially, Mr. Ambassador, as they are brought
here, by you, yourself an old soldier, who have endeared yourself to the American
people by your hearty friendship for this country.

The reverence a man preserves for his native land, so far from standing in the

249

way of his loving and doing his full duty by the land of his adoption, should help
him toward this love and the performance of this duty. If a man is a good son
he is apt to make a good husband; and the quality that makes a man reverence the
country of his birth is apt to be the quality that makes him a good citizen in
the country of his adoption.

The ties that unite Germany and the United States are many and close, and
it must be a prime object of our statesmanship to knit the two nations ever closer
together. In no country is there a warmer admiration for Germany and for Ger-
many’s exalted ruler, Emperor William, than here in America.

It is not out of place m closing for me to say a word of congratulation both to
the German people and the German Emperor upon the work that has been ac-
complished m the Algeciras convention which has just closed, a conference held
chiefly because of the initiative of Germany, It was not a conference in which we
Americans as a nation had such concern, save that it is always our concern to see
justice obtain everywhere, and, so far as we properly can, to work for the cause
of international peace and good will. In its outcome this conference has added to
the likelihood of the betterment of conditions in Morocco itself, has secured
equitable dealing as among the foreign powers who have commercial relations
with Morocco, and has diminished the chance of friction between these powers.
In particular it may not be out of place for me to say that I hope and believe
that the conference has resulted and will result in rendering continually more
friendly the relations between the mighty empire of Germany and the mighty
republic of France, for it is my hope and wish, as it must be the hope and wish
of every sincere well-wisher of humankind, that these friendly relations may not
only continue unbroken but may ever grow in strength.

I have since received from Jusserand and Speck, both, the very cordial
thanks of the French and German Governments. McCormick has just sent
a note running as follows:

I have the honor to inform you that the Mmister for Foreign Affairs referred
immediately on my entering his room, at his diplomatic reception on Wednesday,
to the cablegram which he had sent to M Jusserand instructing the latter to
express the high appreciation of the French Government of the signal aid rendered
by President Roosevelt m arriving at a just solution of the differences between
France and Germany with reference to Morocco — “Ni vamqueur m vaincu.”

There, this is a hideously long communication! I shall send a copy of
it both to Meyer and to White, and shall show it to Root, but to no one
else.

None of the documents are to be published in the Blue Book; and I need
hardly say that it is to be considered as of the most strictly confidential
character.

I have just received your letter of April 18th. The correspondent of the
London Morning Tost is an English Jew named Maurice Low. He is an
underhanded fellow who has been blackballed in the Metropolitan Club
here, who dislikes America generally and hates me in particular. No attention
whatever need be paid to him. He knows nothing whatever, and would
misrepresent anything he did know. He is a liar of bad character. As a matter
of fact, when in return for his cable of congratulations I thanked the German
Emperor after the peace negotiations at Portsmouth came to an end, I did it

2 5 °

exactly as I sent thanks to the King and various other sovereigns in return
for their similar cables. As far as I remember the German Emperor was the
only one who published my answering cable. It is true, however, that I
thanked him much more warmly than I did the others, because the German
Emperor was the only outsider who helped me at all in the peace negotiations
between Russia and Japan. I had to keep a tight rein over him; but still he
did render some help.

As regards the Algeciras business, you know from what I have written in
this letter just how I felt. White says that Nicolson at Algeciras did excel-
lently. I was having very intimate negotiations with Germany and France
through Sternberg and Jusserand here; and if Durand had been worth any-
thing I think that England might have helped me a little. But as I have said
above, Durand, though a high-minded, honest fellow, is simply entirely in-
competent for any work of delicacy and importance, or at least has shown
himself to be so for the past year. Root, Jusserand and Sternberg all three
have precisely the same opimon that I have of him, and not one of them
dreams of talking over anything with him save as you might recapitulate it to
an ordinary dispatch agent.

I am greatly obliged to you for having arranged to present Mrs. Shonts
and her daughters. In their case it is a matter of importance. Perhaps I have
myself failed to realize the incredible pressure upon you, and I shall never
again send you any request at all unless it is of really very great importance,
as it was in this case — for the Panama business has been on ticklish ground,
and I have been anxious that there should be no kind of friction. I shall ex-
plain to you the details when we meet. I have a hearty although somewhat
amused contempt for the Americans who wish to be presented at Court.
Thank heavens, when Mrs. Roosevelt and I were in London and the then
Minister, Mr. Phelps, asked if we did not want to be presented we refused.
We never were presented at any Court in Europe.

As you see from the above letter, I take just the same view of the
Emperor’s dispatch to Vienna that is taken in England. Oh Lord, what a
difference it would make if Spring Rice were here as Ambassador!

With regards to Mrs. Reid, Sincerely yours

3901 • to henry white Roosevelt Mss.

Personal & absolutely private Washington, April 30, 1906

My dear White: Your long and interesting letter was just the very thing
I wanted, for it gave me a good bird’s-eye view of what had taken place at
the Conference. In the first place, my dear fellow, I want to congratulate you
and thank you. You have done admirable work. You have added to the
reputation of our country and you have filled to perfection a difficult and
trying position. We are all proud of the way in which you more than
justified your appointment.

251

I feel that you, Reid and Meyer should know what has gone on on this
side of the water about the Algeciras business. To avoid recapitulation I
shall simply send you a copy of what I have written to Reid. I may add that
Jusserand, who is a trump, toward the end became very much disgusted
with what he evidently regarded as a certain furtiveness and lack of frank-
ness m the French handling of their case. I gamed just the opinion you did
of both the German and French diplomats. Until the Conference met I
felt that France was behaving better than Germany, but toward the end it
seemed to me that neither one was straightforward.

It must have been delightful meeting Venosta. 1 What a wonderful old
man he must be! If you see him I wish you would convey to him the very
high regard of the present President of the United States, who was not born
until ten years after he had taken part m the first desperate effort on behalf
of a United Italy, and who was a baby in arms when, m 1859, Cavour’s plans
at last blossomed into their long fruition.

By the way, have you read de La Gorce’s Histoire du Second Empire? It
is well worth reading, even about Italian affairs, where it gives the purely
French, and indeed French clerical, view.

I am glad you liked Gummere, 2 and when your letter reaches Root I shall
back it up and tell him to send Gummere to Fez to see the Sultan. I originally
thought Gummere pro-German and am pleased to know that he was entirely
impartial.

With warm regards to Mrs. White, believe me, Faithfully yours

3902 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, April 30, 1906

Dear Cabot : I have received through you the request of Mr Charles Francis
Adams, that his recent article upon Egypt 1 be brought to my attention with,
as I understand, the desire that I comment upon it.

Mr. Adams represents one of the most honored names in our history.
For the three generations before him his ancestors have stood among the
foremost m value of the public servants in this country. Mr. Adams himself
served with gallantry in the civil war. He is a man of wide cultivation and is
a man to whose hands have been entrusted great business interests; he is
well known as a student and writer of history, and as a man who has taken
an active interest m the politics of his day It seems to me that such a record

1 Marquis Visconti Venosta, the Italian delegate at Algeciras, “the most commanding
personality at the conference, a really grand old man, . who had served with
Cavour m his youth, had fought in the unsuccessful rising of 1849 against the Aus-
trians, and seemed to embody the history of modern Italy.” — Nevms, White, p 269

2 Samuel Rene Gummere, Henry White’s colleague at the Moroccan conference,
United States consul general m Morocco, 1898-1905, minister to Morocco, 1905-1909

1 Charles Francis Adams, “Reflex Light from Africa,” Century , 72 101-111 (May

1906).

252

imposes upon Mr. Adams a heavy obligation to be sure that in his criticism
of the actual work of government and of those doing that work he shall
speak only after thoroughly investigating the subject, and with the resolute
purpose to disregard any personal prejudice and to strive to guide his
countrymen aright. The work of government is very, very hard, and criti-
cism upon that work is very, very easy, and the least that can be asked of the
critic is that he show both the disposition and the power to make his criticism
of use. Pre-eminently is this true of a man of Mr. Adams’ antecedents and
standing. Yet this article itself shows that Mr. Adams has for seven pages been
criticizing our government policy in . . . ignorance of facts entirely familiar
to us who are running the government.

I have read Mr, Adams’ account of what he saw in Egypt with interest,
but I must frankly add that my chief interest in it has been due to the dis-
covery that he apparently did not know until he went to Egypt various
truths with which you and I have been so intimately acquainted for many
years that to us they seem mere truisms. There is not one fact mentioned
by Mr. Adams as having been brought to his attention in Egypt with which
I was not entirely familiar before the Philippine question, the Cuban ques-
tion, the Porto Rico question, and the Santo Domingo and Panama questions
arose. I was familiar with the aspects of Cromer’s handling of Egypt, not
merely in themselves, but m contrast to the way in which the English, for
instance, have handled India, and the way in which they have handled the
Malay country around the Straits. I am familiar with them as contrasted with
the way in which the Dutch have handled Java, and the Germans Kiaochow.
When I sent Wood out to the Philippines I sent him across the Atlantic
especially so that he could visit both Egypt and Java.

All that Mr. Adams says of Egypt is admirable. I suppose that he knows,
though he does not say, that the British remain in spite of their explicit
promise to leave, and that they have been put into this attitude of breaking
their plighted faith — which it was as a matter of fact necessary for them to
break in the interest of humanity and civilization — because when they went
to Egypt they were foolish enough to pay heed to the anti-imperialists of their
country and generation and make a promise quite as wicked and quite as
foolish as would have been any promise by this government to leave the
Philippines in accordance with the pressure of the anti-imperialists, of whom
Mr. Adams was one. I also suppose that Mr. Adams realizes that Lord
Cromer’s task in Egypt has been infinitely easier than our task in the
Philippines. He had a large population, orderly, submissive and hard-work-
ing, in a land of which the physical configuration is such as to render it a
matter of the greatest ease to put down brigandage and insurrection. All he
has had to do has been to prevent these people being exploited by the men
of the Arabi Pasha type. This he has done with great success. Arabi Pasha
was the exact analogue of Aguinaldo, and when the British dispossessed
Arabi Pasha and his bandit followers they were doing precisely and exactly

253

what we did when we dispossessed Aguinaldo and his bandit followers; and
they were attacked by worthy but shortsighted and misguided people in
England in one case just as in the other we were attacked by worthy but
shortsighted and misguided people here. Lord Cromer is, I think, a big man.
He has done a big task well. It is not as big a task as the task that Taft did
It is not as big a task as the tasks, taken in their aggregate, which Wood has
done; and the performance of Taft, like the aggregate of the performances
of Wood, surpasses the performance of Lord Cromer — and this without
regard to Taft’s record as cabinet minister, which of course puts him in a
class altogether above Lord Cromer.

It is, I trust, unnecessary to state that I have the highest regard and ad-
miration for Lord Cromer and for what he has done. I wish to point out,
however, that if Mr. Adams had been willing to look at what his own
countrymen did he would not have had to wait for seven years and go to
Egypt in order to find deeds to admire; still less would he, under such
circumstances have found it necessary to do all he could to hamper his
countrymen in doing their great and admirable work.

Wood has just finished his work in the Moro provinces. In a sense what
he has done there has been like what was done by the British in the Sudan.
It is, however, much more like what the British have done in the Malay
Straits. But it has been beyond all comparison better done than is true of
the British in these Malay Straits, because in the Moro country, as in the
Philippines and elsewhere, our prime efforts have been to administer the lands
in the interest of the natives themselves, whereas in the Malay States the Brit-
ish, following their usual custom, have raised their revenues chiefly by what I
am sorry to say has accounted to the encouragement of the sale of opium,
and even to the traffic in loose women. And moreover the British have
encouraged the immigration of the Chinese and the exploiting by means of
the Chinese of the Malay lands by white capitalists.

In one of his letters Wood wrote to me on this point, as follows:

I sincerely hope that no legislation admitting any form of Chinese labor
into the United States will ever become law. Anyone who has seen the Chinese
in the coast cities of China would rather see the Pacific coast, or any other
portion of the United States, sunk in the ocean than covered with these people.
As a get-rich-quick scheme for large landowners who do not want to be bothered
with the independence of white labor, coolie labor is a fine thing, but countries
developed by coolie labor have to be defended by white men brought from some-
where else. Nothing more discouraging exists than the condition of the English
colonies developed by this system. Remove the English garrisons, and they would
be a prey to any aggregation of a few thousand men who wanted to take them.
They have neither patriotism nor morals. Their revenues come mostly from
women, opium and gambling. Commercial taxes are light, and a few white men
and others make large fortunes, but no national spirit is developed.

Now as to the practical part of Mr. Adams’ article. I think the article
itself will do good, for I suppose there must be many other people who have

hitherto thought as Mr. Adams has thought, and who do not know (as I
"have taken it for granted all intelligent people must know) what Lord
Cromer has done m Egypt and the lesson it contains for us. This lesson,
however, is not of the slightest consequence to those administering our
government. Its consequence is for those who have been criticizing this ad-
ministration. There is no lesson, of any importance, which can be taught
our administrators m the Philippines and the West Indies by an examination
of what has gone on in Egypt. The circumstances are too different for us
to learn anything save the need of courage, efficiency, common sense and
disinterestedness, and these are exactly and precisely the qualities which have
been shown and are being shown in our own administration of the various
tropic islands. The lesson that is needed is for the anti-imperialists, for the
cultivated people who have shown such an astounding ignorance both of
what we are doing and of what it is necessary to have done. I am very glad
that Mr. Adams should have partially learned this lesson, but frankly I am
astonished that it should have been necessary for him to take a trip to Egypt
in order that he might learn it.

As for the suggestions Mr. Adams makes in regard to the Philippines and
Porto Rico, their value lies purely in their being absorbed and understood
by the group of people with whom Mr. Adams has associated, and who,
though often very cultivated people, have shown such astounding perversity
in refusing to learn about or understand what our government has actually
been doing during and since the Spanish war. So far as Mr. Adams’ advice
about the Philippines and Santo Domingo is practical it is from the stand-
point of the government needless, for we are doing just precisely what he
thinks ought to be done, save as regards those points of his advice which
are based upon ignorance of the conditions. For instance, in the Philippines
the cardinal doctrine of our administration has been that the islands are not
to be exploited, as for example the British are now exploiting the Malay
Settlements. Mr. Adams ought to know that to include the Philippines in
our tariff system would be to confer upon them a boon far greater than it is
in the power of England to confer upon Egypt. This is what we have
already done with Porto Rico. But even without giving to the Philippines
this boon we have done for them more than the English have done for Egypt.
Our problems, as I have said, are infinitely more important and complex,
because we have a nominally Christian population, with some European
blood in it, and we are now painfully endeavoring to fit these people for
self-government. The English are making no such effort in Egypt. The
English are taking no steps in Egypt, and very possibly can take no steps,
which would give Egypt the slightest chance of permanent betterment, if
at any time during the present century the English should move out of
Egypt and leave it to manage itself. But we are steadily endeavoring to train
the Filipinos in the art of self-government, are providing them with their
own legislature, are giving the control of their own municipalities into their

255

own hands, etc., etc. (as well as building «cart roads»), so that as regards
those portions of the islands not inhabited by the Moros, we feel the hope, '
though of course no one can feel the certainty, that at some time more or
less remote they will be able to stand by themselves, much as Cuba is now
standing. Inasmuch as this is only a hope and cannot be a certainty it would
be at the present time criminal to announce it m any way which would be
taken by the present generation as meaning a positive promise to be redeemed
in their time. As I have said above, England has broken faith about Egypt,
and it was necessary that she should break faith. We must take example by
her conduct and avoid ourselves making a foolish promise which might
ultimately prove wicked to keep, while of course it would be accepted as
a proof of double-dealing to break it. If Mr. Adams has really taken to heart
the lesson of Egypt and really understands what we are doing m the
Philippines, all he has to do is to turn in and give the very heartiest support
in his power to Taft, to Wood, and to the administration generally, m
what is being done m these islands.

Mr. Adams is seemingly ignorant of the extraordinary feat we have
performed in Cuba. We entered Cuba under a pledge to leave it, just as the
English entered Egypt. The difference was that we kept our pledge. Lord
Cromer wrote me, by the way, that Wood’s work m Cuba he regarded as
the most wonderful example he knew of the way such work should be done.
Wood’s task m Cuba was more difficult than Cromer’s in Egypt, because he
had to bring order out of chaos, prosperity out of misery, and at the same time
so handle matters that the Cubans should be able to stand alone when our peo-
ple left. All of this was successfully accomplished. We have preserved just so
much interest in the islands as to enable us to be of assistance to their people
in standing alone. As for what Mr Adams says about Santo Domingo, he
apparently does not understand what we are doing, nor does he understand
the obstacles that we are encountering m doing it. We are endeavoring to
accomplish just what he says ought to be accomplished, but we could not
apply the remedy m the drastic fashion he advocates, because to do so
would «necessitate» an armed invasion, which the bulk of our people would
certainly not support, and moreover it would be entirely unnecessary. All
that is necessary is that the bulk of our intelligent people should take the
trouble to inform themselves about what we are doing m Santo Domingo,
and then should do, what they would if patriotic be obliged to do under
such circumstances, that is insist upon a general acquiescence, not merely
among Republicans but among Democrats, m the wisdom of our course.

Mr. Adams’ plan, I take it, is m effect, m these tropic dependencies, that
there should be interference by us so as to secure the well-being of the
dependencies, or quasi dependencies, themselves; that there should be the
minimum of such interference which will accomplish this result; and that
it should where possible be so veiled as to avoid hurting the feelings of
those in whose behalf we are interfering. This exactly describes what has

256

been done in Santo Domingo. We have interfered only at the request of the
Santo Domingo people. We have interfered with the hearty approval of the
foreign debt holders, because our interference benefits them somewhat,
although it benefits the Santo Domingo people much more. It benefits us
chiefly by preventing chaos and misery in an island so near to us that its
welfare must always cause us some concern. We are simply administering the
custom houses honestly, giving forty-five per cent of what we collect to the
government for its expenses and depositing the remainder m our own coun-
try to be used for the settlement of the debts, so far as the letter shall be
shown to be honest I suppose that Mr. Adams will be surprised to learn that
under our management, and thanks to the fact that for the first time honesty,
efficiency and order prevail in the custom houses, the forty-five per cent of
what we collect has much surpassed in value the entire amount which the
Dominican government was formerly able to collect through its own offi-
cials, so that the government actually receives more than formerly, and
yet is accumulating in addition so much money that if what we are doing is
persevered in they will have paid all their debts in some ten years. Meanwhile
the benefit to the islands indirectly, chiefly by minimizing revolutionary
violence and unrest, has been incalculable. The astounding thing to me is
that there should ever have been any opposition to what we are doing; and
yet this is explicable when it appears evident from Mr. Adams’ article that he,
a publicist and writer, a man who prides himself on his knowledge of such
questions, is evidently ignorant alike of what it is that we are seeking to
accomplish m Santo Domingo, of how we are setting about the task, and
of the extraordinary amount that we have already accomplished. Sincerely
yours

3903 • to brooks adams Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, May 3, 1906

My dear Adeems' I have your letter of the 1st instant. If I were merely
anxious for temporary ease and temporary credit, and desired to stand forth
for the moment as “the friend of the people,” I should be glad to see the
Hepburn bill beaten, as you say, for I fully appreciate that any such measure
is sure to cause trouble by the disappointment certain to be felt over its
workings even among men of sense, while the extremists after a short while
are sure to say that it has accomplished nothing. But as a matter of fact the
bill accomplishes a real step forward m that movement of reform which
will be effective only if it is not made too violent, and if it is made by
steps each of which will disappoint the extremists. From the standpoint of
permanent achievement I should feel a great regret if the bill did not pass.
Sincerely yoms

25 7

3904 * TO JOHN BURROUGHS

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 5, 1906

Dear Oom John : That warbler I wrote you about yesterday was the Cape
May warbler. As soon as I got hold of an ornithological book I identified it.
I do not think I ever saw one before, for it is rather a rare bird — at least on
Long Island, where most of my bird knowledge was picked up. It was a
male, in the brilliant spring plumage, and the orange-brown cheeks, the
brilliant yellow sides of the neck just behind the cheeks, and the brilliant
yellow under parts with thick black streaks on the breast, made the bird
unmistakable. It was in a little pine, and I examined it very closely with the
glasses but could not see much of its back. Have you found it a common
bird * Ever yours

3905 * TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, May 5, 1906

My dear Senator Allison: I am informed by ex-Senator Chandler that Senator
Dolliver denies today on your authority, that the so-called “Allison amend-
ment” is yours. 1 This is the amendment which you brought to me the other
day. I told you then that that amendment was absolutely unobjectionable,
and m my judgment no one who chose to exercise an intelligent judgment
could in good faith object to it, because it leaves the Hepburn bill, as regards
the court review, absolutely unchanged. Of course I believe that the courts
have the jurisdiction already; but if there was the slightest doubt about it
every honest friend of the measure would equally of course have to insist
upon just such an amendment being put in the bill. In my judgment the
amendment is a matter of surplusage; but it cannot by any possibility do any
harm, and if it is not entirely a matter of surplusage, it does good. Therefore
I told you that I was entirely satisfied with the amendment because I was
entirely satisfied with the Hepburn bill, but that I should like to have the
so-called “Long amendment” passed also, together with, if possible, some
such variant of the joint Overman and Spooner provisos as we spoke of.

I have all along stated that I was satisfied with the Hepburn bill. At first
I only said that I thought that the Long amendment would be at least as
good as leaving the bill unamended; but the more I have seen of it the more
I have thought it would be better to add the Long amendment. The great
object, of course, was to avoid the adoption of any of the broad amendments,

1 Chandler, Tillman, and Bailey opposed the Allison Amendment which Roosevelt
had endorsed publicly on May 4. Tillman and Bailey in the Senate and Chandler
' in public letters contended angrily that the President had reneged on his earlier
promises and, for partisan reasons, deserted the Democratic allies he had cultivated
for over a month. Roosevelt replied m his equally angry letters to Allison and
Lodge (Numbers 3914, 3917). For an able analysis of this celebrated controversy,
see Richardson, Chandler, ch. xxviii.

258

Senator Bailey’s being the broadest, but Senator Knox’s being in my view
almost as obnoxious.

I write this because I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding. I
expressed my hearty acquiescence in the amendment when you presented
it to me, and I remain heartily acquiescent in it. It can certainly do no harm;
and if there is the slightest need for it it is not only a good but an indispensable
thing, and if the Hepburn bill goes through substantially in its present form,
but with that amendment, I regard the outcome as excellent. I would, how-
ever, regard it as still better if we could get in the Long amendment, not as
a substitute for but as an addition to yours; and personally, as you know,
I should like some proviso on the general lines of the Overman and Spooner
provisos as to regulating the method of granting temporary injunctions.
Sincerely yours

[ Handwritten ] We ought to insist upon the adoption of your amendment
in any event; but I wish we could in addition get the Long & Overman
amendments

3906 • TO HANNAH KENT SCHOFF RoOSevelt MSS .

Private & personal Washington, May 7, 1906

My dear Mrs . Schoff: 1 X have your letter of the 7th instant. The reason I
wired you was that it is my firm belief that the agitation of the Mormon
question during the past few years has been an unmitigated misfortune.
You quote people as asking you why I do not “settle the Mormon question.”
What do you mean by “settle” it, and what do they mean? The simple fact
is that they do not know. I should be glad to see that constitutional amend-
ment about polygamy adopted. At the same time I am not at all sure that
there is any necessity for its adoption. All the evidence that I have seen
goes to show me that there is less polygamy among the Mormons — that is,
that there have been fewer polygamous marriages among the Mormons
for the last dozen years — than there have been bigamous marriages among
an equal number of Christians. Nothing helps a creed so much as a foolish
and futile persecution. Of course the Mormon has precisely the same right
to be a Mormon as the Jew has to be a Jew, or the Catholic and Protestant
to be Christians. If there is anything being done in the way of a violation of
the law by polygamy, I will take any action I can against it. But there has
been a complete failure so far to bring to my attention anything that would
require or justify such action. No facts have been given to me on which I
could proceed. Now it seems to me that the first thing to do is to try to get
these facts. I may add that I am sure that in Idaho the attacks upon the
Mormon church during the last few years have merely tended to drive
them together and make the Mormons tend to act as a unit and tend to act

1 Hannah Kent Schoff, long-time crusader for children’s rights and moral righteous-
ness, since 1902 president of the National Congress of Mothers.

259

under the hierarchy; whereas they were disintegrating and tending to act as
the people of other sects act until these attacks were made. In Idaho the
effort to show any kind of polygamy save of an entirely exceptional char-
acter failed completely and signally. I repeat that as far as any proof has been
produced, polygamous marriages among Mormons in Idaho have of recent
years been relatively no more numerous than bigamous marriages among
the Christians.

This letter is for you personally and is not to be circulated. I shall act at
once when any evidence of crime is brought before me; but it strikes me that
what is needed now on this Mormon question is not loose and foolish
declamations, which may only do harm, but a study of the actual facts. If
these facts warrant action, no one will take it m quicker or more drastic
fashion than I will. Sincerely yours

3907 * TO EDWARD PAYSON BACON Roosevelt M.SS .

Washington, May 8, 1906

My dear Mr. Bacon: Your telegram makes me feel that you did not see my
telegram of the sixth, which runs as follows:

W. F. Hill and

Members Legislative Committee, Pennsylvania State Grange,

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Telegram received. I am happy to tell you that not only am I standing on my
original position as regards rate legislation, but it seems likely that Congress will
take this position too. The Hepburn bill meets my views, as I have from the begin-
ning stated. The Allison amendment is only declaratory of what the Hepburn
bill must mean, supposmg it to be constitutional, and no genuine friend of the bill
can object to it without stultifying himself. In addition I should be glad to get
certain amendments such as those commonly known as the Long and Overman
amendments; but they are not vital, and even without them the Hepburn bill with
the Allison amendment contains practically exactly what I have both originally
and always since asked for, and if enacted into law it will represent the longest
step ever yet taken in the direction of solving the railway rate problem.

Theodore Roosevelt.

You say in your telegram that the Allison amendment “is regarded with
much concern as conveying unlimited scope of review of commission’s
action.” This is sheer nonsense, and whoever regards it with such “concern”
shows thereby his complete ignorance of the whole matter. The amendment
does not convey unlimited scope of review, because it simply declares what
the Hepburn bill either does contain, or must contain m order to be constitu-
tional. Throughout this winter the chief danger to rate legislation has been
from the folly of the well-meaning people who, being misled either by their
own fears or by designing demagogues, have tended to confuse the issue by
raising just such objections as is contained m these protests, or half protests,
against the adoption of the Allison amendment. Sincerely yours

260

3908 * TO ISAAC WAYNE MAC VEAGH

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May io, 1906

My dear Mr. MacVectgh: Yes, thanks to you I was able to go through both
the act and the decision. I had known of Asquith’s proposal. 1 Is it not fairly
comic to think of the yells of fear and rage with which my proposition has
been greeted 15 In my message of next year I shall take up the question of a
graduated income tax as well as a graduated inheritance tax.

With hearty thanks, Sincerely yours

3909 * TO VIRGINIA J. ARNOLD Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 10, 1906

Dear Miss Arnold: I thank you for your note about Quentin. Don’t you think
it would be well to subject him to stricter discipline — that is, to punish
him yourself, or send him to Mr. Murch for punishment that you are not
able to give? Mrs. Roosevelt and I have no scruples whatever against cor-
poral punishment. We will stand behind you entirely in doing whatever you
decide is necessary. I do not think I ought to be called in merely for such
offences as dancing when coming into the classroom, for singing higher
than the other boys, or for failure to work as he should work at his examples,
or for drawing pictures instead of doing his sums. My own belief is that he
is a docile child, although one that needs a firmness that borders on severity.
We refused to let him take his Indian suit to school, as he said the other boys
were going to do with their suits, because we told him he had not been
good enough. If you find him defying your authority or committing any
serious misdeed, then let me know and I will whip him; but it hardly seems
wise to me to start in whipping him every day for offenses which in point
of seriousness look as if they could be met by discipline in school and not
by extreme measures taken at home. 1 Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] If he brings play toys to school, confiscate them & keep
them

3910 • TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON ROOSevelt MSS.

Washington, May 10, 1906

My dear Senator Allison: Now that you have settled the rate bill 1 1 do hope
we can work through an amended Philippine tariff bill. I think we can get it

1 In his first budget, in 1905, Herbert H. Asquith, British Chancellor of the Exchequer,
had proposed an income tax which differentiated between earned and unearned
incomes, a principle which Parliament then adopted.

1 Virginia J. Arnold was Quentin’s teacher at Force School m Washington. Obviously
she was no relative of the Dr. Arnold of the same profession.

x It was already clear that the amended Hepburn Bill would soon pass the Senate, as
it did on May 18 with only three negative votes, those of Foraker, Morgan, and

261

in some such shape as to permit the importation of sugar up to a total of
three hundred thousand tons.

I also hope that you can see your way clear to supporting the Jamestown
Exposition. It is the last exposition we will have until we celebrate the three
hundredth anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims, but it really is an
important matter and I think we ought to handle it squarely. Sincerely yours

3911 ■ TO PORTER JAMES MC CUMBER Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 11, 1906

My dear Senator McCumber : 1 Do you not think the number of private and
special pension bills is getting altogether too large? The present Congress has
been passing them literally by the thousand. No one of these bills is individ-
ually of very great moment, and I do not feel that it is wise or desirable from
any standpoint to use the veto power when there is not some real and sub-
stantial object to be attained. Moreover, I have of course great confidence in
the judgment of the committees of the two Houses concerning these bills,
and know that they conscientiously examine these bills and only report such
bills as appeal to their sense of justice and propriety. It looks to me, however,
as if we were approaching the danger line in this class of legislation.

What I fear is that instead of taking up cases of exceptional merit, we
are now really simply granting favors to great multitudes of people in no
way distinguished above those to whom the favors are not granted, the
difference being due to the clamor, persistency, or influence of those who
advance the claims. It does not seem to me to be a healthy thing to have so
many thousands of exceptions to the general rule. Very sincerely yours

3912 • TO GEORGE HORACE LORIMER RoOSevelt Mss .

Personal and private Washington, May 12, 1906

My dear Lorimer : 1 After our conversation I read The Plum Tree completely
through, and am glad I did so. As you know, I had felt so disgusted before
that I threw the book aside after having gotten halfway through it.

In the last chapter the idealist shows himself — perhaps especially in the
last sentence. I so firmly believe myself that all other success, once the means
of actual subsistence have been secured, counts for nothing compared to the
success of the man in winning the one woman who is all the world to him,

Pettus (Democrat, Alabama). Revised gradually, in a series of conferences, to the
satisfaction of both houses, the bill was finally approved by the President on June 30.
For a discussion of the points at issue in the joint conferences, see Briggs, Hepburn ,
pp. 27 1-275

1 Porter James McCumber, Republican senator from North Dakota, 1899-1923, at this
time chairman of the Committee on Pensions.

George Horace Lorimer, since 1899 editor-in-chief of the Saturday Evening Post ,
author of Letters from a Self-made Merchant to his Son (1902).

262

that Phillips’ being right on this point reconciles me to a good deal in which
he is hopelessly wrong. I have always felt an utter contempt for the sordid
souls who regard themselves as practical and hardheaded because they have
not the capacity to understand what love is; to understand that no other
kind of success can in any shape or way compensate for the lack of that suc-
cess which on the one hand means the enjoyment of the purple splendor of
youth, and on the other hand means the pride and content and comfort of
a middle age and old age passed together by the two people each of whom
stands first in the thought of the other, with their children growing up
around them. It is, if I remember aright, the last line of Browning’s “Love
Among the Ruins,” which sums up the whole matter.

But of course no man is worthy of the highest happiness to be found
within the home if he has not got in him the stuff that makes him do a man’s
work outside of the home. The best and highest work is of course to be
done in time of just war, for the nation’s welfare. But just wars are rare, and
next to just wars I am inclined to put, both in point of interest and in point
of importance, the constructive work of the public servant in time of peace
— or at any rate, the work of the statesman ranks with that of the masters of
art, literature and science, for I include genuine philanthropy as a part of
public service. Now the very fact that I wish to see unceasing and merciless
warfare waged upon corruption, cruelty and treachery and all kindred forms
of evil in public life, makes me resent the overstatement which must surely
defeat its own ends. It is just this overstatement of which, in my judgment,
Phillips is guilty in The Flum Tree . Like others who do not measure the
terms in which they denounce the evil of the present, he is inclined by con-
trast to deify the past. He speaks of the bygone generations, especially the
generation just before the Civil War, as dwelling in a period before the rise
of commercialism in politics, which commercialism he holds as the real root
of all our evils. If he will go back twenty-five or thirty years and read a
bright, sinister little novel called Democracy , he will see what the cultivated
cynics of that period thought of public men and public opinion then. The
writer of Democracy felt as bitter contempt for the American democracy
and its servants during the seventies as Mr. Phillips feels for the same people
at the beginning of the twentieth century. The former writer did not treat
commercialism as the chief factor, or indeed as a considerable factor, in de-
bauching national life. In his (or her) view the corruption was that
inevitably attendant upon unregulated mob rule. The men he hated were,
not the conscienceless millionaire and the politician who combines politics
and business (the two people whom Mr. Phillips hates), but the skillful,
tricky, conscienceless machine politician, and the raw, crude democrat. Now,
as a matter of fact, all are thoroughly unhealthy characters, all of them
exist, and against all we should make war. But Mr. Phillips’ perspective is as
mistaken as that of the author of Democracy . As for the people before the
war, let Mr. Phillips read Martin Chuzzlewit . Jefferson Brick and Elijah

263

Pogram and Hannibal Chollop and Scadder and Diver and all the rest are
the creations of a master mind. Each is a substantially accurate representation
of an American type. The error lay in Dickens’ assumption that taken all
together they constituted practically all that there was of American public
life — a life even less attractive than that of the descendants of these people
some sixty years later, as portrayed by Mr. Phillips. Now Mr. Phillips has
fallen into just the same error in treating his characters as constituting prac-
tically all that there is in public life, for Scarborough is painted so that we
could hardly recognize him as being real, and he no more offsets the dis-
agreeable features of the book than Zola’s unreal hero and heroine in his Rive
offset the hideous human swine in his other books.

I have been active in politics almost from the moment I left Harvard
twenty-five years ago. I possessed a very moderate income. I could not have
gone into politics at all if the expenses of election had at any time come
anywhere near the salaries I have received in the different positions I have
held, and except from these salaries, I of course never made a cent out of
politics — I could no more do it than I could cheat at cards. I have always
occupied working positions. I have seen New York State politics from the
inside as a member of the Legislature, and New York City politics from the
inside as Police Commissioner. I have carried my ward and lost it; have been
delegate to county and state and national conventions, have stumped year
in year out, and served on committees, before and after elections, which
determined much of what the inside policy was to be. I have had on occasions
to fight bosses and rings and machines; and have had to get along as best
I could with bosses and rings and machines when the conditions were differ-
ent. I have seen reform movements that failed and reform movements that
succeeded and have taken part in both, and have also taken part in opposing
fool reform movements which it would be a misfortune to have succeed. In
particular, I have been so placed as to see very much of the inside of the
administrations of three Presidents in addition to my own — that is, of
Harrison, Cleveland and McKinley.

Now, I feel that almost each individual fact brought forward by Phillips
is true by itself, and yet that these facts are so grouped as to produce a
totally false impression. Of course there are some things that he alleges that
I never have seen or heard of. I do not believe that ever, under any circum-
stances, the “Wall Street crowd” made to any man any advance even re-
motely resembling that he describes as made to Scarborough. I do not for
a moment believe that there is or has been any powerful senatorial boss who
in our time has been influential m handling at the same moment the nomina-
tions of the two parties. In fact, I do not for a moment believe that in our
time any boss in one party has had any effect upon the presidential nomina-
tion of the other. I know that there are many wealthy men who have
changed parties at different elections, and supported, for instance, Cleveland
first and then McKinley. To my somewhat grim amusement, the chief repre-

264

sentatives of this class, or at least the majority, went into a futile conspiracy
against me of which they sought to make Mr. Hanna the head; and at that
time they expected that if they could not nominate Mr. Hanna or someone
who would be agreeable to Mr. Hanna, they would nominate Mr. Parker on
the Democratic ticket and turn in and elect him. But their plan miscarried
at every point, and it was merely a purely rich men’s conspiracy, not a
politicians’ at all. If you will look at the list of the Cabinet Ministers and
Ambassadors under my predecessors in office, I think you will see that it
could only have been in very exceptional cases that any one of them owed his
position to money alone, whether money contributed by himself or by out-
siders. There were several, Mr. Whitney being perhaps the most prominent
example, who were very big moneyed men of the identical unpleasant type
portrayed by Mr. Phillips. But these were also men of great political power
and activity within their own party, and men who held strong convictions
on certain points entirely disconnected with wealth. There were many
others, like Mr. Olney and like Mr. Griggs, who undoubtedly m the points
which were closest to the hearts of the big corporation men held just the
views these big corporation men did, but who, I am sure, held them with
entire sincerity, just as hundreds of thousands of small outsiders in no way
connected with the big corporations now hold these same views with entire
sincerity and quite honestly look askance even at the very moderate amount
of radicalism which they believe that I embody.

Again, Mr. Phillips errs in making his big politicians think only of that
which is directly to their own pecuniary interests. For example, Hale and
Foraker both violently opposed me this year on the rate matter no less than
on other matters. They have stood for the forces that I am combating. But
to me the most exasperating fact has been that I do not question their entire
sincerity in standing against me. How Hale, having no earthly interest at
stake, can nevertheless be so rabid against the upbuilding of the navy, and
the Philippine tariff, I do not know. But I do know that he is entirely dis-
interested, and that the rich men have no control over him. Foraker, again,
while violently against me on corporation matters, is as enthusiastic for the
Philippine tariff bill and for the navy and for Panama and a proper foreign
policy generally as any human being can be, and this without the slightest
personal interest in any of the matters.

As for my own appointees; the members of my Cabinet, the judges I
have appointed, the ambassadors and ministers I have appointed, the assistant
secretaries and heads of bureaus around me — I really believe that we have
never before had a finer grade of men, men more capable, more zealous, fear-
less and disinterested. I am as proud of them and have the same feeling
about them as if they were my old regiment and we were down at Santiago.
Scarborough is made by Mr. Phillips to feel hopeless about getting the right
type of men. My experience shows that there was not the slightest need of
any such fear on his part!

2 65

But to my mind the worst mistake that Phillips fell into — a mistake
which has naturally resulted in his since enlisting under the banner of Hearst
— was the mistake of painting all evil as due to corrupt commercialism, and
all rich men as influenced only by what was base. There are plenty of rich
men exactly such as he describes, just as there are Senators and Congressmen
such as he describes, and bosses, state and city, such as he describes. But so
there are plenty of labor leaders, plenty of men engaged in the effort to
persuade poor people to organize for their own betterment, who are mur-
derers, incendiaries, corruptionists, blackmailers, bribe takers and brutal
scoundrels generally. Sam Parks in New York, and the leaders of the West-
ern Federation of Miners in Idaho and Colorado, were and are figures more
sinister and more full of menace to this country than even the worst of the
big moneyed men — the C. P. Huntingtons and Jay Goulds of a former
period, who were far more brutal and defiant than any of the big corporation
men today. But it would be all nonsense to write a novel in which Sam Parks
and Debs and Moyer and Haywood and Dennis Kearney 2 appeared over and
over again as the only types of labor leader. So it is wrong to portray all
men of capital as Mr. Phillips portrays them. In the Senate the chief oppo-
nents of what is decent and right during the last few years have been men
like Tillman. I have had to ride roughshod now and then over the men who
accept Mr. Aldrich as their leader, but it has not been anything like as often
as I have found it necessary in the interest of the country, in the interest of
justice and decency, to ride roughshod over the men like Tillman. Tillman
has sometimes been right; but not nearly as often as Aldrich.

It is with these rich men as with the bosses and corrupt politicians. In
New York State and New York City I have seen at times things as bad
done by the machines and the bosses, and the people they represent, as Mr.
Phillips describes; and I have no question that the same is true of other States
with which I am less familiar. But there are lights in the pictures as well as
shadows! No other Governor of New York ever handled the big men of
Wall Street as I did; as see my Franchise Tax bill; it cost me violent enmity;
but plenty of rich men stood by me!

As for these rich men, I can speak quite disinterestedly. They are not
my friends and never have been. My tastes, unfortunately, were wholly
alien from those which I hope my sons will possess in sufficient quantity
to make them able to do their part in the industrial world. The money-
maker pure and simple not merely has no attraction for me, but is so anti-
pathetic that if I am to get on well with him it is best that we should see
each other as little as possible. The men and women who have been inti-
mate with me since I have been in the White House are the same as those
who were intimate with me before I came to the White House. They in-

2 Denis Kearney, Irish-bom San Francisco labor agitator, organizer of the Working-
men’s party of California, 1877, tireless proponent of the restriction of Chinese im-
migration.

266

elude artist s and architects and writers, philanthropists of the genuine kind,
politicians who possess ideals, and hard workers in the business world who,
nevertheless, do take a proper interest in politics or in philanthropy (to use
a word I hate) as well as in business; they include men I met in the moun-
tains and the backwoods and on the ranches and the plains. If you were able
to see my various guests at the White House (as you have seen some of
them) you would find that taken in the aggregate they seem rather an in-
congruous lot, including Jacob Riis and Jim Reynolds, Mark Twain, Alfred
Henry Lewis, Bat Masterson, Ben Daniels, Samt-Gaudens, John La Farge,
Howells, Henry Adams, Seth Bullock, Llewellyn, Octave Thanet, Laura
Richards, Merrifield and Sewall (who were on the ranches with me), Willis
(with whom I hunted bear and caribou and white goat), Buffalo Bill (who
was a genuine plainsman and scout long before he was a showman) and
many, many others, including quite as many leaders of labor unions as heads
of great corporations — John Mitchell has been to see me quite as often as
Pierpont Morgan; Harvard and Yale men; and quite as often men of the
scantiest schooling.

Now, I only mention these to show that I am disinterested in what I am
about to say. I have never had these rich men ask favors from me save as I
have had the leaders of labor organizations ask favors, or as I have had rep-
resentatives of almost any body of citizens ask me — as, for instance, the
Grand Army, or a bar association, or a medical association, or philanthropic
or religious bodies, or temperance people. For what Mr. Phillips says about
the corruption funds to be used in great campaigns there is some justification,
but not very much. One of the most disinterested men I have ever met in
politics is Cornelius Bliss, the great merchant and manufacturer, who was
treasurer of the Republican National Campaign Committee when McKinley
and I were elected in 1900, and when I and Fairbanks were elected in 1904.
He is an old man who not only wishes no reward but would refuse to accept
any reward. He undertook in each year the inconceivably harassing, ardu-
ous and difficult task without a thought of any kind save of doing what he
believed ought to be done. He has never asked me for a favor of any kind
or description, and indeed has hardly communicated with me save three or
four times to write a statement as to the qualifications of some man who he
knew was an an applicant for some unimportant position, and to speak to me
on several occasions when I have myself requested him to come and consult
with me. I think he has felt that I was going a good deal too far in my pro-
gram about the so-called trusts, about railway rate legislation and the like;
but he has differed from me simply as one friend differs from another —
simply as Root has at times differed from me, both when within and when
without the Cabinet. Cortelyou was the chairman of our National Commit-
tee. Not only has he never made me a request of any kind based upon the fact
of any man or corporation having contributed; he tells me that no such re-
quest has been made of him.

267

Now I do not pretend to say that these conditions which obtain in re-
gard to my own administration and election can be accepted as altogether
normal, but I am confident they are a great deal nearer the normal than
those which Mr. Phillips sets forth m The Plum Tree. Sincerely yours

May 23, 1906.

P.S. The above letter got laid aside and I have only just come across it. I
want to add another thing, not bearing upon The Plum Tree , but upon
Phillips’ recent articles on the Senate. Here again is an instance in which
Phillips takes certain facts that are true m themselves, and by ignoring ut-
terly a very much largei mass of facts that are just as true and just as impor-
tant, and by some downright perversion of truth both in the way of mis-
statement and of omission, succeeds in giving a totally false picture. You say
that Phillips himself is an absolutely straight and honest man, with entire sin-
cerity of conviction. I shall not question this, but I can only avoid question-
ing it by unstintedly condemning his judgment and his diligence. You doubt-
less know that many entirely honest people firmly believe that Mr. Phillips,
in accepting the money of Mr. Hearst to attack the public servants of the
United States, was actuated merely by a desire to achieve notoriety and at
the same time to make money out of the slanders by which he achieves
notoriety. I accept your statement that this is not the fact; but the appear-
ances are more against him than the appearances are against any of the men
he condemns. To be in the employ of Mr. Hearst and engaged m such work
as Mr. Phillips is engaged in, from the point of view of ethics is not one
particle better than to be a public man engaged in the practices he rightly
condemns. He certainly makes no serious effort to find out the facts. In these
articles he in two or three places touches upon things of which I know per-
sonally, and in each such place he is guilty of reckless untruth, the untruth
invariably taking the form of slander. There may be some truth m some of
the things that he says about some of the men, but it is so mixed up with
falsehood, that I, for instance, would not venture to accept a single unsup-
ported statement he makes as true, simply because of the way he misrepre-
sents the facts with which I am acquainted. Some of the senators whom he
has incidentally attacked I happen to know well, and they are high-minded,
honest men; while there is an element of pure comedy in some of the praise
he bestows, when it is considered that it comes from a man who professes
to be holding aloft such an exalted standard of public morality. Apparently
he thinks that to be a foul-mouthed coarse blackguard is a guarantee of hon-
esty. He either ought not to be or is not aware of the fact that in practically
every State legislature there are from ten to one hundred times as many
blackmailing schemes, as many strike bills, introduced to blackmail corpora-
tions, as there are bills introduced corruptly to favor corporations, or good
bills which are killed by corporations through improper methods. He either
is or ought to be well aware of the fact that the average congressman, the

268

average legislator, the average man in public life, is a great deal more afraid
of the labor vote than of corporations, and that it is easier to get injustice
done in the interest of a labor organization than injustice done in the inter-
est of a corporation. He is or ought to be well aware of the fact that to-
gether with the gross and hideous wrong done by certain wealthy men
should be placed the gross and hideous wrong done by certain labor unions
and labor leaders. He should condemn both alike, and should condemn the
wrongdoing m each case m a way that shall neither lead him into general
assaults upon men of property nor into general assaults upon labor leaders.
In other words he should tell the truth, and try to do justice as between the
bad man, whether rich or poor, and the good man, whether rich or poor.

I do not believe that the articles that Mr. Phillips has written, and notably
these articles on the Senate, do anything but harm. They contain so much
more falsehood than truth that they give no accurate guide for those who
are really anxious to war against corruption, and they do excite a hysterical
and ignorant feeling against everything existing, good or bad; the kind of
hysteria which led to the “red fool fury of the Seine,” the kind of hysteria
which renders it so difficult for the genuine reformers in Russia to secure
reform in the teeth of those who mix up reform and destruction.

3913 • TO VICTOR HOWARD METCALF RoOSevelt MSS.

Washington, May 12, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I am anxious that the various Departments shall co-
operate and of course the same thing is necessary of the bureaus within the
Departments. I have recommended that the Bureau of Labor be empowered
to undertake an investigation into the conditions of labor of women and chil-
dren. I am informed that some representative of the Census Bureau has told
Members of Congress that it is unnecessary to pass this bill because the Cen-
sus Bureau has done, or can do, the work m question. I should like the at-
tention of the Census Bureau called to this matter and that it be directed to
investigate and find out if any employee of that Bureau has made such a
statement and to report the facts to me. The Census Bureau is not the proper
Bureau to do the kind of work I desire to have done. Mr. Neill is peculiarly
fitted to do it through his Bureau, and I desire to have the work undertaken
by him if Congress will authorize it. 1 Sincerely yours

1 Crumpacker of Indiana, opposing Roosevelt’s recommendation, had quoted on
the floor of the House a memorandum by Joseph A. Hill, a division chief in the
Census Bureau, dealing with a proposed report by that bureau on the conditions of
labor of women and children. The Census Bureau had not actually begun an investi-
gation, nor did it undertake one, but the bill empowering the Bureau of Labor to
conduct an investigation did not come to a vote in the 59th Congress. The next
Congress, however, passed the enabling legislation Roosevelt had requested

269

39 1 4 * TO william boyd allison Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, May 14, 1906

My dear Senator Allison: As Senator Tillman brought in your name in con-
nection with mine in the statement he made concerning our relations to the
rate bill last Saturday it is perhaps due to you that I should write you on
the matter. After the rate bill was reported from the committee, and after
by vote of the committee Mr. Tillman had been put in charge of it, many
Senators and many outsiders came to see me with reference to it. Among
others I was asked to see ex-Senator Chandler as representing Mr. Tillman,
who was in charge of the bill. I stated in response that I was of course en-
tirely willing to see Mr. Tillman personally or to see Mr. Chandler or any-
one else who could speak for him, and I accordingly directed my Secretary
to make an appointment for Mr. Chandler to see me. My understanding was
that he was the representative of Mr. Tillman. In this first interview he
stated to me the views of Mr. Tillman, with seeming authority. He called on
me several times. During the same period I saw other gentlemen who pro-
fessed to give the views of other Senators. In addition I saw numerous Sen-
ators, both Republicans and Democrats, some of them once or twice, some
of them many times. I also saw numerous outsiders, railroad men, shippers,
newspapermen and students of traffic regulation, including especially the
Attorney General and the members of the Interstate Commerce Commission,
and on two occasions I saw groups of newspapermen m a mass. To all of
these, Senators, representatives of Senators, and outsiders alike, I made the
same statements; those that I made to Mr. Chandler being the same in sub-
stance that I made to you and to those of your colleagues of both' political
parties with whom I had any extended conferences on the subject. The let-
ter of the Attorney General, which I enclose, shows fully the facts as to
the conferences which, at my instance, he held with Senators Tillman and
Bailey. Those conferences were precisely such as, at my instance, he held
with many other Senators to determine the phraseology and discuss the ef-
fect of amendments proposed by them.

To all whom I saw I stated that the Hepburn bill was in its essence en-
tirely satisfactory to me. The Hepburn bill as it passed the House simply
recognized the right of review by the courts — that is, the jurisdiction of
the courts — but did not attempt to define it, thus leaving the courts to pre-
scribe the limits of their own jurisdiction. This was in accordance with the
ideas of the Attorney General, his belief being that thereby we avoided all
danger of the bill being declared unconstitutional because of the attempt to
confer either too much or too little jurisdiction on the courts.

I also repeatedly stated that while it was entirely satisfactory to me sim-
ply to leave the Hepburn bill in substance as it was; that is with the recog-
nition of the jurisdiction of the courts but without any attempt to define
that jurisdiction; yet that I was entirely willing that there should be a defini-

270

tion, provided that this definition did not seek to grant a broad review, but
explicitly narrowed it to the two subjects which as a matter of fact I be-
lieved that the courts would alone consider in case there was no attempt to
define the limits of their review; that is, would limit it to the question as to
whether the Commission had acted ultra vires and as to whether any man’s
constitutional rights had been impaired. I stated that if the question of de-
fining or limiting the review was brought up at all I personally felt that this
was the way in which it should be limited or defined.

At different times at least a score of tentative amendments were either
prepared by the Attorney General at the request of Senators or submitted
to me by Senators. As to many of these amendments (including among
others the substance of the so-called Long, Overman, Bacon and Spooner
amendments) I stated that I should be entirely satisfied to have them in the
bill; as to others I suggested modifications which would make them satisfac-
tory; as to none did I ever say, either to Mr. Chandler or to anyone else, that
I should insist upon having them in the bill as a condition of my approving
it. On the contrary, I was always most careful to state that I was not trying
to dictate any particular program of action. In no case, either in the case of
Mr. Chandler or in the case of anyone else, was there the slightest oppor-
tunity for any honest misconception of my attitude or any belief that I had
pledged myself specifically to one and only one amendment or set of amend-
ments, or that I would not be satisfied with any amendment which preserved
the essential feature of the Hepburn bill as it came from the House. You
will doubtless recall that in the course of the several visits that you person-
ally made me we discussed a number of these proposed amendments, trying
to find out for which one there could be obtained a sufficient body of assent
to secure its passage and the passage of the rate bill.

To almost every amendment proposed by anyone I found that there
were other excellent men who objected, or who at least wished to change
it, and I finally became convinced that it was impossible for Senators with
advantage to use me as the intermediary in coming to an agreement with
their colleagues, especially when they only communicated with me through
another intermediary, and I earnestly suggested to all to whom I spoke that
they should communicate with you, whose purposes and mine were identical.
About this time I was informed by various Democratic Senators that they
could not come to an agreement upon any amendment and that the best
chance for success lay in passing the Hepburn bill substantially unchanged.
I was informed and beheved that this was Senator Bailey’s view; and a num-
ber of the Republican Senators who favored the bill expressed the same
opinion. Shortly after this you m company with Senator Cullom called
upon me with the amendment which is now commonly known as the Alli-
son amendment. I told you that while I should prefer the Long and Over-
man amendments, yet that your amendment was entirely satisfactory. Your
amendment does not in the slightest degree weaken or injure the Hepburn

271

bill. It merely expresses what the friends of the bill have always asserted
was implied by the terms of the bill. I may add, that my own opinion that
your amendment in no way changed, whether by diminishing or enlarging,
the scope of the court review as provided in the original Hepburn bill, is
also the opinion of the Attorney General, of Mr. Root and of Mr. Taft
Their judgment is that the amendment merely avoids the criticism that the
Hepburn bill would be constitutionally invalid m not expressly providing
the court review which its supporters have always contended was plainly
implied in the original language

The original Hepburn bill stated that the venue for certain actions was
m certain courts; the amendment states that these courts shall have jurisdic-
tion to consider such actions. To my mind it seems difficult to assert that
this works any change whatever m the principle of the bill. 1 Yours sincerely

3915 * TO THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION Roosevelt MSS

Washington, May 17, 1906

The Interstate Commerce Commissio?i: It seems to me that it would be a
very desirable thing to have a valuation made of the railroad properties. I
do not know how much time this would take or how much money it would
cost and whether or not there are objections to having it done, or even if it
could be done without the action of Congress. 1 At your leisure I should like
your opinion on these points

3916 * TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER Roosevelt MSS

Washington, May 18, 1906

My dear Gilder: I shall have that article on the early Erse sagas 1 for you
about June 1st. It will be between five and six thousand words Whether it
will suit you or whether it will be worth anything is more than I can say.
If you like it, however, it seems to me that it will be an excellent article for
illustration, especially for color illustration. Through Charley De Kay 2 you
could get at someone who would know the dress of the ancient Erse heroes,
and surely you could make good pictures of Queen Meave, the fair-haired
warrior-queen, and of the hero Cuchulain driving at headlong speed m his

1 Moody, m a letter to Roosevelt of May 14, 1906 (Roosevelt Mss.), sustained the
statements made by the President m this letter and that to Lodge, No. 3917.

1 Roosevelt requested the necessary congressional authority in his annual message of
December 1907 (State Papers , Nat Ed. XV, 415). This was not granted, however,
until the passage of the Valuation Act m 1912.

1 “Ancient Irish Sagas,” Century , 73 327-337 (January 1907)

“Charles De Kay, author of Bird Gods, a study of myths and religions m ancient
Europe, cutic, New York Times, 1876-1906; consul general at Berlin, 1894-1897,

chariot, or of the march of the warriors on the famous raid for the brown
bull. De Kay will tell you about all three. Sincerely yours

3917 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, May 19, 1906

Dear Cabot: It is just as well to keep a record of w hat occurred m connec-
tion with the Chandler-Bailey-Tillman matter. At the time that the incident
began I had already seen many Republican and several Democratic Senators
about the pending rate legislation. Two or three men had been used as inter-
mediaries by Senators in communicating with me. The chief among these
was himself a member of the Senate, Senator Crane. One or two of them
were outsiders, and one of these was Mr. Henry Beach Needham, who was
seemingly in close touch with Senator Bailey. He suggested to me two or
three times the need of getting into touch with Senators Tillman and Bailey,
saying that both of them wished to be in touch with me but neither of them
desired to call on me. He finally suggested that I see ex-Senator Chandler,
who he said was prepared to give utterance to the views of Messrs. Tillman
and Bailey. I told him that I did not care a rap whether I saw Senators
Bailey and Tillman in person or saw any man able to speak for them. I
was perfectly willing to do either and I sent for ex-Senator Chandler. He
came around that evening, March 31st. He certainly knew what I had sent
for him about, because he at once began to speak about the attitude of Till-
man and Bailey upon the rate bill and expressed himself confidently as to
what they would do, though he stated that he knew Senator Tillman’s posi-
tion much better than Senator Bailey’s I cannot remember the details of
the conversation. That Chandler spoke with authority as to Tillman’s posi-
tion is conceded by Tillman, who in his speech of last Saturday said:

Mr. Chandler further said he told the President he believed it highly probable
that the greater part of the Democrats would join in the President’s limitation
of the powers of the court, but that Mr. Bailey and myself would urge in addition
some prohibition of the courts from issuing ex parte injunctions, and he said that
the President stopped him, saying that he need not enlarge upon this point, be-
cause he was heartily in favor of such a restriction of injunctions.

I told Chandler in effect that I hoped we should get the rate bill through
as nearly by a nonpartisan vote as had been the case in the House, that I
thought the action of those Senators who were led by Aldrich in the com-
mittee jeoparded the bill, but that I believed there was a large majority in
its favor and that it could pass. In response to a question of his I stated that
as on the motion of Aldrich, Tillman had been made the official leader of
those responsible for the bill on the floor of the Senate, I should be pleased
to commumcate with him at any time, and that I was not trying to dictate
any phraseology, but that I hoped we should be able either to pass the Hep-
bum bill unchanged or else with such amendments as would improve it. As

273

to the court review, I stated that I was entirely satisfied to leave it as it was
in the Hepburn bill — that is, simply conferring jurisdiction upon the courts
and leaving them to determine the limits of this jurisdiction, but that if any
attempt was made to define these limits I felt that the effort should be to
narrow and not to broaden them, and that in my judgment the Long amend-
ment, which provided for the courts 1 testing whether or not the Commission
had acted ultra vires and whether or not anybody’s constitutional rights had
been impaired, was excellent We did not mention Senator Foraker’s name.
I think we did mention both yours and Crane’s. We spoke of several amend-
ments that had been offered or circulated. I said that I was entirely opposed
to Bailey’s broad court review amendment, and that I did not believe that
any Republican support could be obtained for his anti-injunction amend-
ment; but that both the Long amendment and the Overman amendment were
entirely satisfactory to me. I also discussed at length the Spooner amend-
ment, which had been circulated for a couple of months and had been con-
sidered by the Attorney General, by the Interstate Commerce Commission,
by me, and by many Senators, including you and Knox. This was the amend-
ment providing for the money being paid in escrow pending the determina-
tion of a suit about any rate, it had nothing to do with a court review. We
did not speak of Senator Foraker at all. There was no need we should, as he
was against the whole bill and we were discussing only the propositions re-
lating to it. I expressed myself as strongly against Knox’s amendment but as
being impressed by Knox’s argument in favor of having the right of review
by the courts expressly affirmed in the bill instead of merely implied. Chan-
dler had himself brought up the names of Tillman and Bailey and their posi-
tion in the matter before I began to talk, and he announced that his plan was
to have Tillman and Bailey co-operate with the Republican Senators who
were following Allison and come to an agreement about what they would
support.

The next day he sent to Mr. Loeb his visiting card with sentences thereon
running as follows*

Please say that both persons I spoke to him about have been seen; and that my
plan is entirely feasible — there is question of tactics only. Never mind what the
newspapers say.

These sentences are only of value as showing that it was he and not I
who first mentioned Bailey and Tillman, and that it was Chandler’s plan and
not mine that was discussed. I do not regard this as of consequence except-
ing as it shows Senator Chandler’s lack of veracity in his subsequent explana-
tion.

Afterwards Senator Chandler called upon me several times. He sent Mr.
Loeb the following memorandum to give me:

The game of the railroad senators is to support Bailey’s amendment and induce
him to agree to a broad right of review. What that is to be is not certain but the

2 74

principal object is to “beat him” meaning the President. Mr. Tillman, however,
considers himself as acting with the President to pass the review clause with the
minimum amount of court power and will not enter into any such game.

Mr. Loeb:

Please hand this to the President privately. I am hearing an important case
all day today but could see him if he wished to see me at one o’clock.

Wm. E. Chandler.

He called upon me shortly after this memorandum had been sent (I think
that very evening) and stated that Tillman was very suspicious of Bailey and
he was, too, and that both believed he was under the control of the Stand-
ard Oil Company and was trying to come to an agreement with Aldrich;
but that Tillman was watching him closely and would not let him do any-
thing crooked I do not pretend to give his exact language, but this was the
effect of what he said; and he all along kept warning me that Bailey was
untrustworthy and was at heart against us, but that Tillman was watching
him and would not permit him to betray the cause. I am of course wholly
unable to say whether these statements were mere inventions of Chandler’s
or whether Tillman had such suspicions or whether they were or were not
justified as regards Bailey himself.

I finally told Chandler that I thought it was useless to keep seeing me;
that I would heartily favor any measure, whether the Hepburn bill un-
amended or the Hepburn bill amended, which would carry out the purposes
I had in view and which would secure a sufficient body of support to make
certain its passage. I suggested that Bailey and Tillman see Moody and also
urged that they get into touch with Allison, saying that I had found it hope-
less to try to reconcile the differences among Senators and I should suggest
that they try to reconcile these differences among themselves; that I was
working in complete unison with Allison and felt that he would be the
best man for them to consult. They consulted Moody and told him what
amendment they desired and he drew it up for them and submitted it to
them in a letter in which he expressly stated that it was their amendment
and not his, and he stated furthermore that he was not responsible for it and
could not say that I would accept it. He also urged them to see Allison. Soon
afterwards Mr. Needham came to me and told me that Mr. Bailey had in-
formed him that in his judgment there was no chance of any agreement
being reached and that the only hope was to pass the Hepburn bill. I had
seen numerous other Democratic Senators and it had become entirely evi-
dent by this time that Senators Tillman and Bailey, who Chandler claimed
had been trying to control the Democratic minority, could not do so. Fur-
thermore, it became evident that it was impossible to obtain enough votes
to pass any one of the amendments that had hitherto been proposed and
that the best chance w T as to pass the Hepburn bill substantially unchanged
as regards the court review Then Allison came in to see me, and you know
the rest. Sincerely yours

2 75

39*8 * TO CHARLES HALLAM KEEP

Roosevelt Mss *
Washington, May 19, 1906

My dear Mr. Keep: Mr. Walcott has just brought to my attention the diffi-
culty he is having about his publications with the Interior Department. I
understand you are just about to take up the organization of that depart-
ment. In connection with this work will you please give special attention
to this printing matter^

I should like to have you look also Into the question of the technical and
general supervision of the scientific publications of the Government, with
a view to seeing whether anything is needed beyond the committee on book-
making which you have already recommended that I should appoint. 1 Sin-
cerely yours

3919 * TO WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 19, 1906

My dear Mr. Curtis: I have looked up the Gore Canyon matter as follows-
Mr. Loeb received a letter from Mr. Philip B. Stewart, of Colorado
Springs, Colorado, dated May 22, 1905, as follows

There is a matter of great import to this state for which I wish to bespeak any
proper aid the President can give. Briefly, Mr. David H. Moffat 1 and associates
are building a railroad to develop Northwest Colorado, a territory of immense
coal fields and an area of ten thousand square miles suitable to stock, crops
and recreation. This road goes through to Salt Lake City, a distance of five
hundred miles and calls for about twenty-five millions of dollars. About six mil-
lions have already been expended.

After the enterprise was under full swing the Reclamation Bureau of the
Government withdrew Gore Canyon on the surveyed route of the road, and the

1 A report of the Keep Commission in October 1906 described a waste and mis-
management in the Interior Department that was typical of conditions throughout
all the executive departments of the government The commission recommended
drastic reduction of the Secretary’s office staff, restoration of direct authority and
communication between the Secretary and bureau chiefs, tours of duty in the field
for all executive personnel.

One special problem received most of the commission’s attention. The Stationery
and Printing Division of the Interior, though wholly unqualified for the task,
exerted strict and arbitrary editorial control over government publications of
scientific subjects. The commission recommended the appointment of a special publi-
cations committee under the supervision of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior
One member of this committee was required to have “practical experience m editing
and printing.” The President had, on January 23, 1906, issued a general order directing
the creation of such a committee, but nothing had been done about it m the Intenor
Department.

1 David Halhday Moffat, president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway One
of the few independent railway owners of the twentieth century, Moffat organized
the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway, known as “the Moffat road,” from
Denver to Salt Lake City against continual opposition from the Harnman interests
Moffat died before the completion of the lme in 1926

276

Government proposes to here build a great dam and by the water so held to
irrigate lands in California and Arizona, twelve hundred miles distant.

Gore Canyon is necessary for a feasible exit from the high range where this
road crosses the Continental Divide.

The Union Pacific on the north, The Denver and Rio Grande, representing
the Goulds’ interests on the south, have thrown every possible obstacle in the way
of this construction.

At the present time the Century Light and Power Company, a stool pigeon
for larger mterest, is and has been for some months active through its agents
m Washington in instigating litigation by the Government against the right-of-
way of this projected railroad. This Power Company desires or professes to desire
to utilize the water from this reservoir to create power for commercial purposes
and to deal with the Government on that basis, returning the water to its natural
channel for subsequent use in irrigation.

I presume the irrigation project is sound and important, but Colorado feels
that her great wealth in a section larger than Vermont, in which is more coal than
in the State of Pennsylvania, should not be bottled up by a use of her own lands
and waters to enrich communities twelve hundred miles away.

Colorado capital against the determined opposition of two great systems of
roads, with their selfish financial backing, has been staked to develop this territory.
The promotors believed their title to this route to be valid, as it was against
all save the National Government. It is at least questionable whether any irrigation
scheme is more important to the country than the development contingent on
the successful completion of this five hundred miles of railroad.

Excepting the interests of competitive railroads, every citizen of this state is
profoundly interested m the successful completion of Mr. Moffat’s project, and no
service of greater consequence to this state can possibly be rendered by the
National Government than to give this enterprise every opportunity to be com-
pleted. I most earnestly hope that the question may receive the broadest and
most liberal consideration and not be jeopardized by the naturally professionally
interested experts of the Interior Department.

Mr. Stewart impressed me much, for he is a man of rigid probity, and
upon whose judgment I can (implicitly) depend. While in Colorado a great
many people had already spoken to me of their anxiety to get the railroad
through and have the section of Colorado in question developed at as early
a date as possible. At about the same time the following telegrams were re-
ceived from Senator Teller and the three Colorado Congressmen*

The published report that the government will build a reservoir at Gore
Canyon, Colo is injurious to the mterests of Colorado and not required by any
interest local or national. I desire to enter my earnest protest against it as a waste
of the irrigation fund for that purpose.

H. M. Teller

Almost unanimous Colorado sentiment favors use Gore Canyon by Denver
North Western Ry., and that use for irrigation project should be subordinate
thereto. Earnestly request Department will consider and protect local interests of
very great importance to State’s development.

F. E. Brooks.

The people of First Congressional District regard building of North Western
Railroad of vital importance to their welfare and do not believe building of

277

Gore Canyon Dam will benefit them, but will obstruct building of railroad. As
their representative respectfully and earnestly object to appropriation of site
for reservoir purposes.

Robt. W. Bonynge.

If irrigation project at Gore Canyon Colorado will seriously interfere with
Moffatt railroad through that country, it ought to be carefully considered. The
railroad is of incalculable value to northwestern Colorado especially I beg of the
department not to impede the progress of that country.

H. M Hogg. 2

I looked into the matter, with which I had no particular familiarity, and
found that the Reclamation Service had considered the advisability of build-
ing a reservoir at Gore Canyon in order to develop the lands along the lower
Colorado River, but had not taken, and had not the money to take, any
steps toward building the reservoir. The lands in and around the Canyon
had accordingly been withdrawn to be held for an indefinite period for res-
ervoir purposes; but this had been done subsequent to an application by the
Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway Company for a right-of-way
over these same lands, and also subsequent to an application by the New
Century Light and Power Company for the right to use the river’s flow
for power purposes. The report of Mr Grunsky, consulting engineer, under
date of September 22d, 1905, mentions that charges had been made that the
Reclamation Service was attempting to obstruct railroad construction in the
interest of rival roads; this is alluded to m Mr. Stewart’s letter; but of course
it is a matter about which I do not know and can know nothing. The rail-
road made its application for the right-of-way on January 3, 1903. Its con-
tention was that the subsequent withdrawal of these lands, while the unap-
proved application of the railway company’s right-of-way was still pending,
was not a sufficient reason for the denial of the railroad company’s applica-
tion. It started to construct its railroad. During the summer of 1905 the
litigation went on, the Government having applied for an injunction to
prevent the railroad from thus being built through the proposed reservoir
site. In an opinion rendered September 5, 1905, by Judge Hallett 3 of the
United States District Court of Colorado the contention of the railway was
sustained and the case was decided against the Government, the Judge hold-
ing, among other things, substantially as follows*

That it is not claimed that the Gore Canyon site for the reservation has been
selected by the Secretary of the Interior, or even that he has considered in any
precise form the subject of its selection; that the only step taken has been the
withdrawal of public lands; that this withdrawal was upon the recommendation
of employees of the Reclamation Service; that there is only a small area of land

*Herschel Millard Hogg, Republican representative from Colorado, 1903-1907.

* Moses Hallett, Republican, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Colorado Territory,

1866-1876, Umted States district judge, 1877-190 6. Hallett was also a professor of

American constitutional law and federal jurisprudence at the University of Colorado

278

in the valley of the Grand River in Colorado which can be irrigated from Grand
River, and that no reservoir is needed for these lands; that in Utah there are no
such lands, although the officers of the Reclamation Service are of the opinion
that there are such lands which may be irrigated from Colorado River; that the
reports of surveys for the Department of the Interior are to the effect that any
scheme for taking out water for lands in Utah is impracticable; that the large
tracts m Arizona and California have not been ascertained in any such way as
required under the Reclamation Act, that these lands only are the lands which
would be supplied from the reservoir if built, that, from all that appears in the
record, it is plam that a great deal of work, occupying much time, is yet to be
done, as to the lands in California and Arizona. Whether they may be better
irrigated from works in that locality in the lower course of the Colorado River, is
a problem which is yet unsolved, that there is much reason to believe that Colo-
rado River below the Grand Canyon, and below the Black Canyon of that river,
is sufficient in quantity for irrigating all of the lands that can be irrigated from it
in California and Arizona; that Salton Sea is filling at a great rate; that the cost
prohibits the use of storage schemes, — such as $1,000,000 for Kremmling
reservoir, and like amounts for reservoirs on Green River, another tributary of
Colorado River, that the proceeding in regard to this reservoir is no more than
tentative, — it is experimental; it is in a stage of inquiry; that the withdrawal from
entry of the public lands was a wise measure — this prevents settlement upon the
land — nothmg more, that “probably in a case in which the facts are obvious and
clear, and m which the selection of a good site for a reservoir or for other works
is reasonably to be expected the Government may proceed to prevent any
encumbrance upon the site so selected”; that the court does not believe that the
decisions assert that under the circumstances disclosed a right-of-way secured
many years ago by a railroad company may be transmitted to another company
after so long a time — conveyed by assignment or deed; that the railroad company
is, and has been, for some time back, engaged in the construction of its railroad
in the basin of the reservoir and immediately in front of Gore Canyon, and this,
according to the opinion of the Supreme Court, in Jamestown , and Southern
R.R.C0 . vs. Jones, (176 U. S. 125) is a sufficient location of the line. If that were
not true, the railroad company has filed its profile of its road under the terms
of the act of 1875, an d it was decided by the Department of the Interior to be a
good filing, that even though the map was not approved “there was no reason
for withholding approval other than a desire to aid in the reservation of this
site for a reservoir, and that was no reason at all.”

When this decision by the Court had been rendered the question was
whether the Government should appeal to the higher court or not. The
Department of Justice informed me orally that there was no likelihood of
securing a reversal of the opinion of the court below. Under such circum-
stances, to continue the suit simply meant obstructing the building of the
railroad and the opening of the country to no purpose; and with the irrita-
tion added to by the fact that while the railroad was to aid in the develop-
ment of Colorado the reservoir which the Reclamation Service hoped to
build was to store the waters of Colorado for use in Arizona and southern
California and not for use in Colorado. In the Reclamation service I am
obliged to move carefully because of the interstate jealousies over the dis-

279

tribution of waters, and I do not like to take action which may seem to be
against the interest of one State or to sacrifice such interest to the interest
of another state unless the action is clearly demanded.

In the case at issue, the Gore Canyon case, such action would have been
absolutely unwarranted. The California Senators were very anxious that the
reservoir should be established, and in view of an inquiry from Senator Flint
on the subject, Consulting Engineer Grunsky in a letter of January 17, 1906,
stated

The immediate approval of a project or of a series of projects with Kremmling
Reservoir as one of the features is out of the question on account of the non-
availability of funds. The Reclamation fund is practically all allotted.

The Director of the Reclamation Service in his letter of May 7, 1906,
stated:

As the reclamation fund has now been allotted to such an extent that funds
would not be available at once for the acquisition of the railroad right-of-way
in such manner, it is evident that any further utilization of this site must be
postponed for a number of years.

In other words, it would have been utterly inexcusable to hold up the
railroad from being built through the Gore Canyon on the ground that we
wanted it for a reservoir site, when there were no funds in sight with which
this reservoir site could be built; so that for an indefinite period covering an
unknown number of years the Canyon would simply have been unoccupied
either by a railroad or by a reservoir.

It therefore appears in the first place that the decision of Judge Hallett,
a Judge whose integrity has never been questioned, showed that we had no
right to prevent the railroad from building; and in the second place the con-
dition of the reclamation funds showed that if we had the right it would
have been inexpedient and improper to exercise it, because under no cir-
cumstances could the reservoir have been even begun until an indefinite time
had elapsed.

On December 5, 1905, the Attorney General advised the Department of
the Interior that the suits had been dismissed without prejudice and that no
further proceedings were contemplated.

I personally went over all this matter, and took cognizance of or directed
the action. On November 3d Mr. Stewart wrote me mentioning that he had
not a dollar’s interest in the railroad or any ulterior or indirect interest, ex-
cept possibly an unconscious bias in favor of his own State and her develop-
ment. Any other decision than that which I reached an this case would not
only have been an outrage, but an exceedingly foolish outrage.

Please treat this letter as private so far as Mr. Stewart’s remarks concern-
ing rival or hostile corporations are concerned, but the rest of the letter you
can use as you choose, save that of course it is not to be directly quoted.
Sincerely yours

280

3920 * TO JOHN FRANK STEVENS

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 21, 1906

My dear Mr. Stevens : Permit me to introduce to you Mr. A. Bruce Mmear
of the Young Men’s Christian Association, who is to be sent down by the
Y. M. C. A. as an experienced secretary to organize the association work on
the Isthmus. You, as a railroad man, of course know the admirable work the
Y. M. C. A. has done among railway men and among all men of the same
type. In the railroad branches there are, for instance, more Catholics than
members of any one Protestant sect, a proof positive of its absolutely non-
sectarian character. I think that nothing better could befall us on the Isthmus
than to have these Y. M. C. A. organizations flourish as they have flourished
on the railroad systems in the United States as well as in the army and navy.
Of course, what they need is space and equipment. They cannot do any-
thing with just one little room in which to hold a prayer meeting. The
prayer meeting has got to come in as an adjunct to reading rooms, bath-
rooms, billiard rooms, and general arrangements which will make it a prac-
tical club for young men. It would not be worth Mr. Minear’s time to go
down, nor would I advise him to go down, save on the basis of trying to
make the Y. M. C. A, an attractive, wholesome, decent club to which men
won’t have to be urged to go, but to which they will actually go of their
own accord, probably with the purpose of getting amusement, but with the
result also of their own moral and physical betterment. I hope that all that
the Government can do to help along this work will be done. 1 Sincerely
yours

392 1 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, May 23, 1906

My dear Senator Beveridge: Will you glance at the enclosed clipping from
the Evening Star? 1 It contains of course just what must not be said about
your speech. Can’t you make it understood that I have not seen your speech
and am of course not in any way responsible for it, and that it has simply the
significance that attaches to the speech of a member of the Senate Commit-
tee on Foreign Relations who has been in close agreement with the Presi-
dent’s policy, or (if you prefer to put it that way) who, together with the
President and the other Republican members of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee, has for the last four and a half years followed substantially
the same policy? Of course what is necessary is that there shall not be any

1 The government helped by makmg Minear a superintendent at Culebra

1 The Washington Evening Star reported on May zi, 1906, that Beveridge had dis-
cussed with the President a speech on foreign policy he was to give before the
American Chamber of Commerce m Paris Beveridge later canceled his trip to
France m order to fight m person for his meat inspection bill.

281

impression conveyed that you are the spokesman of the administration, or
that your utterances have any official weight as representing the adminis-
tration save from the standpoint of our general sympathy and friendship.
It was because of this that Root felt so strongly that neither of us ought to
see your speech in advance — a feeling with which, when he had presented
the case fully to me, I thoroughly agreed.

Secretary Wilson tells me that your bill about the meat inspection is all
right. 2 I have not yet had the chance to look over it. It is impossible for me
to give any idea as to when I shall send in my message transmitting the re-
port. It may be that I shall want to make certain further investigations. I
may wish to send in a brief preliminary message. Sincerely yours

3922 • TO JAMES WOLCOTT WADSWORTH Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 26, 1906

My dear Wadsworth * 1 1 am anxious to see you about the amendment to the
agricultural appropriation bill, providing for effective inspection and control
over the packing industry. I have recently had an investigation made by
Commissioner Neill of the Labor Bureau and Mr. J. B. Reynolds, of the situa-
tion in Chicago packing houses. It is hideous, and it must be remedied at
once. I was at first so indignant that I resolved to send in the full report to
Congress. As far as the beef packers themselves are concerned I should do
this now with a clear conscience, for the great damage that would befall
them in consequence would be purely due to their own actions. But the
damage would also come to all the stock growers of the country and the
effect of such a report would undoubtedly be well-nigh ruinous to our
export trade in meat for the time being, and doubtless the damaging effect
would be apparent long after we had remedied the wrongs. I am therefore
going to withhold the report for the time being, and until I can also report
that the wrongs have been remedied, provided that without making it public
I can get the needed legislation, that is, provided we can have the meat in-
spection amendment that has been put on m the Senate in substance enacted
into law. Of course what I am after is not to do damage even to the packers,
still less to the stockmen and farmers. What I want is the immediate better-
ment of the dreadful conditions that prevail, and moreover the providing
against a possible recurrence of these conditions. The beef packers have told

2 Beveridge’s amendment provided for the inspection of packing houses and meat by
officials appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture. The cost of this inspection was
to be borne by the packers, who were also compelled to stamp the date of canning
on all tins. The amendment reserved to local officials, subject to approval by the
Secretary of Agriculture, the right to condemn packing houses. From their rulings
the packers were denied appeal

1 Wadsworth was then chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture

282

me through Mr. Louis Swift that if I will not make this report public they
will guarantee to remedy all the wrongs which we have found or may find
to exist. This is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough, and it
is absolutely necessary that we shall have legislation which will prevent the
recurrence of these wrongs. I should not make the report public with the
idea of damaging the packers. I should do it only if it were necessary in order
to secure the remedy. With the report published I believe it would be pos-
sible to get substantially the Senate provision above referred to enacted into
law. Unless it is necessary, however, I do not wish, for the reasons I have
above detailed, to give publicity at this time to the report, with the certainty
that widespread damage will be caused not merely to the wrongdoers but to
the innocent. Nevertheless, it must be distinctly understood that I shall not
hesitate to cause even this widespread damage if in no other way does it
prove possible to secure a betterment in conditions that are literally intol-
erable. I do not believe that you will have any doubt on the matter. If you
have, I earnestly hope you will see me at once. Can you not see Commis-
sioner NeilP

I may add one point. This amendment is not merely a good thing from
the standpoint of the cattle growers; it is a good thing from the standpoint
of the beef packers themselves. Their practices have been very bad and It is
useless for anyone to attempt to whitewash them. I happen to know that in
the near future further publications will be made showing how badly they
have done. The only effective way to meet these publications, which will
doubtless contain a very great mass of exaggeration together with a quantity
of damaging truth, will be to show that the situation has been met and the
evils complained of have been remedied; and above all that legislation has
been had which will guarantee us against their recurrence. There is nothing
that can be done so much in the interest of the stock grower and the dis-
posure of the stock grower’s products as to pass in its substance the amend-
ment which the Senate has put upon the bill in question. Sincerely yours

3923 * TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, May 27, 1906

To the Secretary of the Interior : I have your letter of May 26th, and returri
herewith Inspector McLaughlin’s communication of the 23rd instant, as you
request. In view of the statement of Inspector McLaughlin 1 all action on

1 James McLaughlin, agent, 1876-1895, and inspector, 1895-1923, in the United States
Indian Service; friend of Crow King, the Indian leader in the Little Bighorn battle
against Custer, and of Sioux Chiefs John Grass, Red Cloud, and Rain-in-the-F ace ,
captor of Chief Sitting Bull during the Sioux Ghost Dance movement of 1890. During
his long term of service, McLaughlin made innumerable investigations in Indian ter-
ritory and negotiated over forty agreements between the tribes and the federal
government.

283

new appointments m Oklahoma as to which there is ground for suspicion
will be held up pending an immediate and thorough investigation of the
charges of Dr, Hall. Dr. Hall will be required to substantiate these charges,
not before a court but before an officer of the Department. Meanwhile, please
investigate at once what has been stated as to the legislation now before
Congress as to the leasing of school lands in Oklahoma containing mineral.
I desire a prompt report on this. I do not wish there to be any delay in
undertaking this investigation. If Dr. Hall’s statements are true Mr. Frantz
would have to be at once removed as Governor . 2 If they are not true, Dr.
Hall himself should be proceeded against. Meanwhile nothing whatever ap-
pears against Mr. Cade and no reason whatever has been advanced for failure
to allow action by the Senate Committee on his nomination; and as regards ex-
perience and education, he certainly seems to have had as much of both as
many of the best land officers in the service. I desire, however, before request-
ing the Senate Committee to act on his appointment to know where he has
“indicated his intention to resign, for reasons satisfactory to himself, if ap-
pointed.” I should like a report on this Let me repeat that no showing what-
ever is made in your letter against Cade’s fitness. In the appointment of
registers and receivers there has never been, so far as I am aware, any effort
to get any special degree of experience, particularly as lawyers. It appears
by the papers that Cade has had much more than the average experience of
appointees to these positions. In the absence of any definite allegation against
him save the allegations that have been completely disproved I shall with-
draw my request of the Senate Committee to hold up his confirmation. All
that remains for me to inquire about is the statement that he would resign
if appointed. I shall not commission him unless it is his intention to serve 3
But the Cade matter is of very small consequence compared to the alle-
gations against Governor Frantz as contained in Inspector McLaughlin’s re-
port. I wish the fullest and most searching investigation of these to be made
without the delay of a day — Governor Frantz of course to be given ample
opportunity m his own defense. The statements contained in the anonymous
letter you showed me the other day were substantially those made to you
by Mr. Flynn 4 which Mr. Flynn himself abandoned when I confronted him
with Mr. Frantz. Sincerely yours

2 Frank Frantz, Rough Rider, Republican Governor of Oklahoma Territory, was
campaigning for the governorship of the future state of Oklahoma. Frantz had been
accused by Dr. Rodger Hall of illegal transactions m oil leases while Indian agent
for the Osage tribe in 1904. Hall’s charges, although upheld m Inspector McLaughlin’s
report, later proved incorrect, and it was found instead that they had been prompted
by the political factions opposing Frantz, see Numbers 4057, 4084, 4118

3 C M. Cade’s nomination for register of the Land Office at Guthrie, Oklahoma,
submitted by Roosevelt in February 1906, was finally confirmed m June 1906 Cade,
however, did resign soon after his appointment

4 Dennis Thomas Flynn, Republican, formerly delegate in Congress from Oklahoma
Territory, 1893-1897, 1899-1903, later delegate to the Republican National Conven-
tion, 1912.

284

39^4 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker: I have been thinking over what you said to me yester-
day about immigration. Of course you know that I have been repeatedly
committed m my messages to practically what I understand the immigration
bill contains; Commissioner Sargent tells me it is an excellent bill. I wish you
could see your way clear to support the bill; that is, get Grosvenor, Payne,
Dalzell and Hepburn, any or all, interested in its passage. 1 You spoke yes-
terday as if you thought that the Wall Street men were for it. This is not
the case. The chief opposition to this bill comes from those in New York
and elsewhere who are directly concerned in getting immense masses of
cheap labor — labor that has all the bad effects upon the country which the
labor imported under contract formerly had. The big foreign steamship
companies, and doubtless the American steamship companies also, have al-
ways been the main source of opposition to this measure, and have undoubt-
edly influenced some very noteworthy citizens of foreign birth against it.
These steamship lines care for nothing whatever but to import the greatest
possible number of immigrants, and their thought of the interest of the coun-
try in the matter is nil. They are interested purely in having big shiploads.
So the mine owners in the anthracite region especially, and I think also in the
bituminous region, desire to secure labor which will keep down the rate of
wages and therefore the standard of living of those already working in the
mines, whose standard of living, whether they be of native or foreign birth,
tends constantly to rise. I have never known a wealthy man, who looked at
the matter purely from the standpoint of a wealthy man, and not from the
broad American standpoint, who was not in favor of importing all the cheap
labor possible.

You spoke of agitation among the Germans and Scandinavians against
this bill. I do not believe that either the German or Scandinavian immigra-
tion will be affected by it. There are other tests which I should greatly pre-
fer. The bill is not drawn up as I myself should draw it up. I, for instance,
would prefer to have a most rigid inspection by our own consular agents
and if necessary by the agents of the bureau of immigration in the foreign
countries from which the immigrants come, and to decline to allow any to
come here who were not physically, morally and intellectually of a good
type. But this would be a very expensive matter and it would not be at pres-
ent practicable. In addition I should like to have immigration through the

1 The bill to which Roosevelt referred incorporated the recommendations Commis-
sioner Sargent had made in his successive annual reports. The most significant clauses
provided for more effective enforcement of the Contract Labor Law, further
restrictions on steerage passage, a formal program to widen geographic distribution
of immigrants within the United States, and improved information and inspection
services in Europe. The bill failed to pass, as did other proposed restrictive legislation,
including one measure providing for a literacy test — a device which Roosevelt con-
sidered, but did not officially support.

285

steerage under the present arrangement practically done away with by lim-
iting rigidly the minimum of space on a vessel which would entitle it to
carry a man,~woman or child, so as to render it impossible to take the immi-
grants over save in comparatively small numbers and on good, big ships.
These amendments of mine would be really far more drastic and I think
more intelligent than the tests which the Senate have put on; but these tests
are of themselves very much better than nothing.

Perhaps I can best express my feeling in this matter of immigration by
saying that I have two concerns about it. In the first place, as regards the
immediate effects, I hope to see such laws enacted as will prevent the admis-
sion of immigrants who by their competition tend to lower the standard of
living, and therefore the standard of wages, of our own laboring men,
whether these themselves be of native or foreign birth. But in the next and
more important place, it seems to me essential from the standpoint of the
permanent good of the Republic that we should try only to bring in ele-
ments which would be of advantage to our community. I do not care what
the man’s creed or nationality may be, so long as his character is all right
and so long as he has the amount of physical and mental fitness that we
should be able to demand. In other words, I want to see immigrants of such
a character that we need not be afraid of their grandchildren intermingling
with ours as their political, social and industrial equals. The importance of
this is even greater from the standpoint of the mass of reputable immigrants
already here than from the standpoint of the native bom, for it is the former
who will most feel the effects of improper competition. Such competition
may benefit the rich employer of labor who cares for nothing but to get that
labor cheap; but it is of harm to the country.

I very earnestly hope that you can see your way clear to give the bill
the weight of your powerful support. Sincerely yours

[Hand'writte??] P.S I understand the Pure Food bill , 2 & the Naturaliza-
tion bill 3 must be considered first. I earnestly favor both, especially the pure
food bill; but let us have all three*

a This measure, recommended by Roosevelt in his message of December 1905, de-
feated in previous sessions of Congress, was passed in 1906, partly because of the
public reaction to the Neill-Reynolds report on meat. It made illegal the manu-
facture or sale of foods, drugs, medicines or liquors which were adulterated or im-
properly labeled There is a detailed account of the agitation for this reform in and
out of Congress in Sullivan, Our Times , vol. II, ch. xxvii.

8 For long concerned with the weaknesses and maladministration of the naturalization
laws, Roosevelt in his annual messages of 1903, 1904, and 1905, had requested remedial
legislation. In March 1905 he appointed a commission to examine that subject. Its
report, to which the President called the attention of Congress, formed the basis for
the Naturalization Act of 1906, the first fundamental change in the naturalization
system since 1870. The measure created a bureau of naturalization within the De-
partment of Commerce and Labor, drastically reduced the number of courts em-
powered to naturalize, defined in detail the requirements for citizenship, which
included the ability to read, speak, and understand English, and provided elaborate
machinery to eliminate fraud in the granting of citizenship, see Roosevelt, State

286

39 2 5 ’ TO HARRY RUBENS

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 28, 1906

Afy Mr. Rubens : 1 I wish I could be present at the meeting at which
you are to speak in honor of the late Carl Schurz. 2 As this is impossible,
permit me to express through you my appreciation of the distinguished serv-
ices rendered to the country by him. To him there befell the great good
fortune which befell all men who were able to play a part worth playing
at the time of the great crisis of our government. He was one of those who,
in the council chamber, on the stump, and on the field of battle, upheld the
policies of mighty Abraham Lincoln, and he is remembered therefore among
the men who came to the front in one of the two heroic periods of our
government — at the time of its foundation and at the time of its preserva-
tion. He was able to prove his fealty to a lofty idealism by the course he
then took.

After the war he was among the most prominent champions of civil
service reform, and later, of sound money, and in addition to his services as
a public man he rendered very real service to the cause of American letters
by his remarkable little biography of Lincoln and his longer biography of
Henry Clay, not to speak of his other writings.

With all good wishes, believe me, Sincerely yours

392 6 • to upton Sinclair Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, May 29, 1906

My dear Mr. Sinclair: I have received your letter of the 26th instant to-
gether with your telegram of the 27th, and I have now seen your articles
in the New York Times of May 28th and 29th. You have of course com-
mitted no discourtesy in the interview you have given. You are not bound to
me by any agreement or understanding not to make public anything you
see fit. I must add that you do not seem to feel bound to avoid making and
repeating utterly reckless statements w r hich you have failed to back up by
proof. But my own duty is entirely different. I am bound to see that nothing
but the truth appears; that this truth does in its entirety appear; and that it
appears in such shape that practical results for good will follow. The results
of the investigation are not yet in final form, nor is the investigation itself
finished. Until these investigations are finished and until the results are m

Papers, Nat Ed. XV, 176-177, 245-248, 31 1-3 12; House Document , 59 Cong, 1 sess.,
no. 46, George M. Stephenson, A History of American Immigration , 1820-1924
(Boston, 1926), p. 246.

1 Harry Rubens, an Austrian immigrant and Chicago lawyer representing Republic
Steel, United Breweries, and other large corporations, had been in the 1870’s an
editor of German language newspapers in the Middle West and, in 1871-1872,
private secretary to Carl Schurz.

2 Schurz d>ed on May 14, 1906.

287

final form, I should most emphatically object to having them made public
unless it should become necessary to make a preliminary and unfinished por-
tion of them public in order to secure the passage of some measure sub-
stantially like the Beveridge amendment. Such hasty and premature action
could only be justified if it became necessary in order to secure a remedy
for the evils What I am after is this remedy. The time when publicity is to
be given to the report is not m itself a vital matter The vital matter is to
remedy the evils with the least possible damage to innocent people. The
premature publication that you request would doubtless cause great pecu-
niary loss not merely to the beef packers and to all those responsible for so
much of the conditions as are bad, but also to scores of thousands of stock
growers, ranchers, hired men, cowboys, farmers and farm hands all over this
country, who have been guilty of no misconduct whatever. Some of the men
thus hurt would be wealthy men. Most of them would be poor men. If it is
necessary ultimately to hurt them m order that the reform shall be accom-
plished, then they must be hurt, but I shall certainly not hurt them need-
lessly nor wantonly. My object is to remedy the evils The facts shall be
made public m due time, but I shall give no preliminary report to the pub-
lic unless it becomes necessary m order to bring about the result aimed at.

I think I ought to make two comments upon your interview in this
morning’s paper. In the first place it is to my mind an absurdity to have
advocated any investigation by the Federal Government at all if the Federal
Government has not power to take action. You say in effect that the Bev-
eridge amendment, and, indeed, any legislative act of the kind, must be inop-
erative. Of course if I supposed you were right m this it would have been
hardly worth while to go into the investigation. To “give the people the
facts,” as you put it, without pointing out how to better the conditions,
would chiefly be of service to the apostles of sensationalism and would work
little or no permanent betterment in the conditions. Now what I intend to
bring about is just precisely this permanent betterment, and what is more
I intend to bring it about by the establishment of a Government body which
shall not only insist upon decent conditions, but which shall at any and all
times keep the public informed when the conditions are not what they
should be m any given instance.

In the second place, I ought to tell you that for many of your more
startling statements there is not as yet any justification whatever in the way
of proof; there are many things that you have asserted which should under
no conceivable circumstances have been asserted unless you were prepared
to back them up with testimony which would satisfy an honest man of rea-
sonable intelligence, and hitherto in these cases no such testimony has been
forthcoming. On other points you have furnished facts which enabled us to
test what you have said. On some of these points we have already tested
the accuracy of your statements by investigation On other points we intend

288

so to test them; but as yet the examination is not finished and is not in shape
to be made public. Sincerely yours

3927 * TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt M$S.

Washington, May 29, 1906

My dear Senator Beveridge: I do not feel that it is vital that the packers
should pay. It perhaps would be better but it is not vital. I certainly would
not split or run the risk of losing the amendment by insisting beyond reason
on this proposition.

I could not possibly go to that farmers’ dinner. If I went to one I would
have to go to a number of others.

I have written to Root to see what he can do for Hannah. Sincerely
yours

3928 • TO HENRY BRYANT BIGELOW Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, May 29, 1906

My dear Mr . Bigelow : 1 Dr. Bigelow has just handed me not only your
pamphlets but the extremely interesting typewritten sketch “Summer on
the Labrador Coast.” I am so much pleased with what you have written that
I want to send you a personal word. We are producing thousands — I may
almost say tens of thousands — of good, honest, hard-working, small scien-
tific observers, each of whom, m the world of science, corresponds to a
good ordinary bricklayer in the world of mechanical industry. I have a
hearty respect for such a scientific worker, just as I have a hearty respect
for a good, honest bricklayer, but just as ten thousand bricklayers do not
make up for the failure to produce one first-class architect, so ten thousand
small scientific observers will not atone for the failure to produce a great
faunal naturalist; while if we can only bring forth in this country one man
who, in addition to the power of accurate observation and of painstaking
research, possesses also the power of vivid description, we shall have made
a great permanent contribution alike to science and to letters. We have in-
numerable so-called nature writers who write more or less well and more or
less interestingly, but who have no idea of observing or recording truth-
fully — the chief example being John Luther Long. 2 Now of course it is

1 Henry Bryant Bigelow, a junior staff member at the Harvard Museum of Compara-
tive Zoology, later curator of coelenterates there, 1916-1926, and director of the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1930-1939.

a Roosevelt here confused John Luther Long, the playwright, with his favorite target
in the field of nature faking, William Joseph Long. The confusion was, perhaps, not
unnatural in view of the fact that three of J. L Long’s most popular works were
entitled The Dragon Fly , The Fox-Woman, and Madame Butterfly .

289

better that a book be so dull as to be unreadable than that it should not be
worth reading and yet readable; and therefore the driest list of birds or
mammals from any given locality, provided it be truthful, is better than any
of Mr, Long’s books. But the real combination to be devoutly hoped for is
a book which shall contain the facts from the industrious and truthful small
scientist and yet be really literary. Such a book must have mass, and, in ad-
dition, must have charm. To have written hundreds of little pamphlets does
not in any way or shape make the writer stand on an equality with a great
faunal naturalist like Audubon, simply because the latter wrote a big, co-
herent work, and wrote as a nature lover as well as a scientific observer.

One of the most foolish of modern attitudes is the attitude of the dry-
as-dust person who says that history must henceforth be treated as science
and not as literature; whereas of course the only great historians are also
great literary men, and any historian who is not such is merely the gatherer
of bricks and stones which may some day be used by the master architect.
Such a man does a good work and is entitled to praise, but he m no shape or
way comes in the class with Gibbon and Macaulay, Tacitus and Thucydides,
and it is in this last class that the great historian of the future — the really
great historian — must come.

So it is in scientific matters. We need that the greatest scientific book
shall be one which scientific laymen can read, understand and appreciate.
The greatest scientific book will be a part of literature; as Darwin and
Lucretius are.

Now all this leads up to what I want to say, which is that it looks to me
as if you had it in you to do just this work. Your Labrador sketches are fine.
There is only one false note in them, to my mind, and that is where you
speak of wondering what the caribou, lemming and wolf think of the North-
ern Lights — which was a little sentimental as they doubtless do not think
of them at all. That piece of yours ought to be published. You should send
it to one of the magazines, but for Heaven’s sake do not rest content with
sending it to the magazines. Do not become a mere magazme writer. You
might just as well merely write unsigned articles m the daily press or even
in the Sunday newspapers. You have it in you to write a great nature book,
in which you shall set forth the facts and m which you shall vividly portray
the results of most painstaking and careful investigations; in which you
shall record many things that are new and of importance; and in which you
shall, in addition, give the vividness and charm that these facts in their own
surroundings should present to the beholder. It would be everything if we
could see such a totally new departure as would be implied by a great book
on our mammals and birds — a great faunal natural history which should
enable us to see the different animals and different groups of animals in their
surroundings, just as you have enabled me to see the Labrador coast I ear-
nestly hope that you will work steadily with some such end in view. Sztz-
cerely yours

290

39 2 9 # T0 WILLIAM PETERS HEPBURN

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 29, 1906

My dear Colonel Hepburn; I do hope you can keep in the Standard Oil and
railroad coal-ownership propositions that were put on in the Senate. 1 It
seems to me very important from every standpoint that this should be done.
I think it is not only important from the standpoint of decency, but that
it is important from the standpoint of political expediency. Sincerely yours

3930 • TO JAMES WOLCOTT WADSWORTH RoOSeVelt MSS .

Washington, May 31, 1906

My dear Congressman Wadsworth: After seeing you Secretary Wilson came
in, with his assistants, to explain to me the character of the amendments to
the Beveridge amendment which you had left with the Department of
Agriculture. Mr. Neill came in to discuss the same matter; and so, afterwards,
did Senator Beveridge and Mr. Reynolds. I went over the changes stated to
have been proposed by you very carefully. I am sorry to have to say that it
seems to me that each change is for the worse and that in the aggregate they
are ruinous, taking away every particle of good from the suggested
Beveridge amendment. In view of the wide differences of opinion developed
by these proposed changes, and the evident likelihood that there cannot be
an agreement upon anything which would seem to me satisfactory, I do not
feel warranted in longer withholding my message to Congress transmitting
the reports as to the conditions in the beef packing establishments, and I
shall send it in at an early date.

I may add that the Secretary convinced me that I was in error in treating
as immaterial the question as to who should pay the fees. He says that
failure to appropriate sufficient money would at any time reduce the inspec-
tion under the proposed law to the farce which it now is, and that absolutely

1 Both the Standard Oil Company and the coal railroads were at this time much on
Roosevelt’s mind. On May 4 he had transmitted to Congress the report of the
Bureau of Corporations on freight rates in the oil industry. Commenting on the
discriminatory practices of the Standard Oil Company, Roosevelt urged Congress to
confer upon the I.C.C. “power in some measure adequately to meet the clearly
demonstrated needs of the situation.” To further this end, Lodge, whose home state
particularly suffered from the conditions reported, sponsored an amendment to the
Hepburn Bill which expressly included oil-pipe lines within the jurisdiction of the
commission.

Earlier in the session the Tillman-Gillespie resolution, directing the I.C.C. to
investigate competitive conditions in the coal industry, had focused attention on the
growth of monopoly in both the anthracite and bituminous fields Under pressure
from his constituents, Senator Elkins of West Virginia, ordinarily the arch conserva-
tive, introduced the so-called “commodity clause” amendment which forbade com-
mon carriers to transport their own commodities except timber. This was directly
aimed at the coal roads. Both the Elkins and the Lodge amendments were ultimately
accepted without real change by the House. For a discussion of the economic
significance of the amendment, see Ripley, Railroads, Rates and Regulation , ch. xv.

291

the only way to secure efficiency is by the imposition upon the packers of a
fee. The information given me seems to show conclusively that as now
carried on the business is both a menace to health and an outrage on decency,
and that no legislation that is not drastic and thoroughgoing will be of
avail. Under such circumstances I feel that the facts upon which I base my
judgment must now be laid before Congress. 1

I thank you for the courtesy with which you have treated me in this
matter. Sincerely yours

3931 - TO JAMES RUDOLPH GARFIELD Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, May 31, 1906

Sir: In your report of your investigation of the transportation of standard
oil in the United States you exposed certain practices of the Standard Oil
Company in relation to the railroads which though not unlawful were in-
jurious to the public welfare. You also exposed certain practices which on
their face appear to be in violation of existing law. The general effect of your
report was to show that the Standard Oil Company profited very largely at
the expense of its smaller competitors by open or secret rates. As regards the
open rates it does not appear that they are unlawful in the sense that action
in reference to them can be taken by the Department of Justice; but the
existence of these open rates is a powerful argument for the passage of the
railroad rate bill which is now in conference between the two Houses of
Congress. When this rate bill becomes a law it will provide the means of
preventing future discriminations of this kind.

As regards the secret rates it appears that very many of them were
cured prior to the publication of your report and subsequent to your dis-
covery of them, the railroads discontinuing them when once it became

1 Opposition in the House to the Beveridge amendment stemmed from the reluctance
of the Old Guard to extend the authority of the federal government over private
industry. They particularly objected to the broad judicial powers conferred on the
Department of Agriculture. This ideological obstacle was strengthened by the effec-
tive lobby of packers against all phases of the amendment The cattlemen lobbied
against the Beveridge plan for the payment of inspection after the packers announced
that to defray the cost they would have to lower the price paid for livestock James
W. Wadsworth, chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, and Repre-
sentative William Lonmer of Illinois, formerly himself a packer, drew up a substitute
amendment which satisfied the opponents of the Beveridge proposal. This substitute
permitted the packers to appeal condemnation decisions, eliminated the dating of
tins, and provided that the government pay the cost of inspection For this expense
the amendment authorized an annual appropriation of $3,000,000.

Roosevelt at first refused to accept these changes. To strengthen his position he
reversed his earlier decision and on June 4 sent the Neill-Reynolds report to Congress
To the lengthy conferences between the Senate and the House on the meat inspection
law he gave the detailed attention he had previously given the railroad bill Ulti-
mately, however, both Roosevelt and Beveridge, recognizing that Wadsworth and
Cannon had the votes, modified their views The compromise inspection law, as
passed, denied the packers the right of court review, but otherwise followed Wads-
worth’s proposals on all significant counts.

evident that you knew of them and that you intended to publish the facts
concerning them. I should like a complete list of all of these cases where
secret rates have been discontinued since your investigation was begun and
prior to or subsequent to the publication of your report. I should also like
a list of the cases m which the secret rates were not discontinued.

The effective way of remedying the open discriminations, so far as they
can be remedied by any action under the interstate commerce law, is by the
action now being taken by Congress. But as to other discriminations, there
may be some cases in which the giving of the discrimination was an offense
that can be punished through the action of the Department of Justice. I
would like a list of the cases which in your opinion should be presented to
the Department of Justice to see whether it can take action.

There will remain, even after the passage of the rate law and after the
discontinuance of the discriminations produced by your investigation and
after action by the Department of Justice, the further question as to
whether there is under our present laws any radical remedy for the existence
of a great corporation acting as the Standard Oil Company has been shown
by your report to have acted. This question can only be met in connection
with the antitrust law, not the interstate commerce law. The facts dis-
closed in your further investigation as to the monopolistic features, if any,
of the Standard Oil Company will have to determine whether there is
sufficient ground for referring this feature of your investigation to the De-
partment of Justice for its consideration, so that action under the antitrust
law may be taken; provided that such action is shown to be warranted by
your investigation and by any supplementary investigation on the part of the
Department of Justice itself. 1 * * * Sincerely yours

3932 • TO GEORGE CLEMENT PERKINS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 5, 1906

My dear Senator Perkins: It seems to me that it would be a real misfortune
if this Congress adjourned without accepting the munificent gift of Cali-
fornia of the Yosemite Park. What is the status of the matter 5 Is it not pos-
sible to have it put through 5 I earnestly hope you will look it up and let
me know. It would be too bad if, either from indifference or because of

1 Two different reports of the Bureau of Corporations prompted action against the

Standard Oil Company by the Department of Justice. The report of May 1906 on

the “Transportation of Petroleum” underlined the conditions on which was based the
decision of District Judge Kenesaw M. Landis in August 1907 The decision imposed
on the Standard Oil Company a fine of $29,240,000 for accepting railroad rebates

This penalty was later reversed.

The bureau’s report of May 1907 on the “Position of the Standard Oil Company
m the Petroleum Industry” described the situation which the Department of Justice
attacked m its suit of September 1907 charging that the Standard Oil Company was
an illegal monopoly m the refining and shipping of oil Not until the Supreme Court’s
celebrated “rule of reason” decision of 1911 was this suit settled.

293

paying heed to selfish interests, the United States Government fails to act
as in my judgment it is morally obligatory upon it to act in view of the
generous action of California. 1 Won’t you consult Senator Flint about it ?
Sincerely yours

3933 • to Leonard wood Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 5, 1906

Dear Leonard: I happened to mention to Oscar Straus the other day that
Cleveland had expressed to you his regret that he vetoed that immigration
bill. Oscar Straus called up Cleveland, who denied that he ever expressed
such regret. What are the facts in the case? I of course have not the slightest
intention of publicly quoting you, but I should like to know for my own
information. Always yours

3934 * TO JAMES WOLCOTT WADSWORTH Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 8, 1906

My dear Mr. Wadsworth: In accordance with your request I send you here-
with the two reports of inspection by the committee appointed by the
Department of Agriculture of April 5th and 13th. This committee had al-
ready been appointed when I notified the Secretary that I desired that such
a commission should be appointed in order to make the investigation.
Subsequent complaints to me and the consideration of complaints already
made showed that the charges were not only against the packing houses but
also to a certain extent reflected upon the action of the Government inspec-
tors, and I came to the conclusion that it was best to have an investigation by
outside individuals who could not be charged with being m any way inter-
ested in the matter. Accordingly before the completion of the investigation
by the Department of Agriculture I directed Mr. Neill and Mr. Reynolds to
make an investigation, the first report of which has been laid before
Congress. Much testimony has been offered to us which has not been con-
sidered in this report, for Messrs. Neill and Reynolds in this report confine
themselves to stating m more or less summary way the facts as to which they
had been eyewitnesses, and what they have said cannot be successfully con-
troverted. Some of the ground traversed by Messrs. Neill and Reynolds is not
touched upon in the report of the committee of the Agricultural Depart-
ment. As to the ground covered in common by the reports of the two in-
vestigating committees there is no conflict in substance as to the important
matters, although there is a marked difference in emphasis, this being par-
tially due to the greater length and detail of the report of the committee of

1 On June 19 the President signed a House joint resolution enlarging the boundaries

of the Yosemite National Park to include the Yosemite Valley grant and the

Mariposa Big Tree Grove, given to the government by the state of California.

294

the Department of Agriculture. In my judgment the emphasis of the report
of Messrs. Neill and Reynolds is abundantly justified by the facts.

To show the immediate and extraordinary change for the better which
the mere fact of their investigation is already bringing about in the condi-
* tion of the packing houses m Chicago it is only necessary to instance the
following portions of a letter received from a most competent and trust-
worthy witness in Chicago, whose name I will give the Committee if it so
desires:

Chicago, Friday June ist.

On Monday I began a tour of all the great packing houses — going first to
Libby’s, then Swift’s.

Tuesday all the morning discussed changes that ought to be made and caught
a glimpse of the awakening at Armour’s. In the afternoon visited the plant with
the supt.

Wednesday I rested and contemplated the “Awakening of Packingtown.” It
is miraculous. Thursday did Nelson Morris, with the supt. x x x Nelson Morris
has done much to make things better. By the time the next inspecting party
arrives they will have still more new lavatories, toilet rooms, dressing rooms,
etc. Cuspidors everywhere, and signs prohibiting spitting. In most the awakening
seemed to come by force from without. There was the slightest indication that
the “still small voice” was at work also.

At Armour’s, at my suggestion — I made no pretense of making an investiga-
tion, but frankly announced my desire to see things for myself, and to get a
fresh impression of conditions, as I had not seen the plants since before the strike.
On every hand there was indication of an almost humorous haste to clean up,
repave and even to plan for future changes. Brand new toilet rooms, new dressing
rooms, new towels, etc. etc. Swift’s and Armour’s were both so cleaned up that
I was compelled to cheer them on their way, by expressmg my pleasure at the
changes. The sausage girls were moved upstairs where they could get sun and
light, they to have dressing rooms, etc. I asked for showers and lockers for the
casing workers at Armour’s, and got a promise that they would put them in.
The canning and stuffing room, chip beef and beef extract at Armour’s seemed
really quite good. In all of these rooms the girls work. At Libby’s the girls are
to be put into a blue calico uniform, which they will buy at Vi price. They are
putting m toilet rooms which they say are temporary, and that when the building
is remodeled they will have these put in a better place. The haste towards reform
would have been amusmg if it were not so nearly tragic.

They tried to win my help on the ground that loss of foreign trade would
mean hardship for the workers in my neighborhood, and I must say I do share
this fear, but I cannot see the wisdom of my coming out publicly and saying that I
saw indication of an awakening, for I want the changes to be radical and perma-
nent, even though we all have to suffer for the present.

I wish to repeat that my investigations are not yet through. I am not
prepared to make a final statement either as to so much of the complaints as
concern the management of the Bureau of Ammal Industry or as to certain
of the graver charges m connection with the adulterations of meat products,
as well as certain other matters. But enough has been developed in my
judgment to call for immediate, thoroughgoing and radical enlargement of

295

the powers of the Government in inspecting all meats which enter into
interstate and foreign commerce. Unfortunately, the misdeeds of those who
are responsible for the abuses we design to cure will bring discredit and
damage not only upon them but upon the innocent stock growers, the ranch-
men and farmers of the country. The only way permanently to protect and •
benefit these innocent stock growers, these farmers and ranchmen, is to
secure by law the thorough and adequate inspection for which I have asked.
Sincerely yours

3935 * to kermit roosevelt Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 9, 1906

Dear Kermit: Last Monday I strained my ankle playing tennis but did not
think it amounted to anything and played a couple of sets more, with the
result that I have had to abandon even riding, and am now engaged busily
in doing nothing when I am not at my Presidential work*

Mr. George Kennan was in to see me yesterday and was very interesting
He had criticized me for trying to make peace between Russia and Japan, be-
cause he thought Japan should have had more favorable treatment; but he
told me that afterwards, when he got in touch with the higher officials of the
government and the army he found out that Japan was being bled white, and
that peace was necessary. The army people at Mukden had asked the home
people for ten extra divisions of troops in order that they might attack
Harbm, and the government notified them that they could only give them
three. Oyama felt that it would be very risky to undertake the attack unless
he was reinforced to a greater extent, and even if he got all the troops he
wished he did not expect to get Harbin before the following April — that is,
last April, and he could not say when he would attack Vladivostok. It is
evident from all this that the peace was made just exactly as it should be,
that is, leaving each combatant with what it had been able to get or keep, and
not requiring any money payment by either.

You do not know how pleased I am at your decision to stay in Groton
It was eminently wise Dr. Sturgis Bigelow has been spending a week or two
with us. He is a delightful man, and as easy as an old shoe. He is no bother
at all m the house. We have had a good deal of rain recently and the country
is green and fragrant; and I never saw the White House and the grounds
looking more lovely. Your loving father

3936 * TO FRAU FREDERICK CZERMAK Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 1 1, 1906

My dear Madam: I have received your letter and the very interesting and
attractive photographs of your family and of the hunting lodge I should
not venture to advise you about coming to America. My experience has

296

been that life in a new country is very hard for people accustomed to the
social ease which comes from high position in an old country. America is an
excellent place for artisans and peasants to come to, but unless you are
thoroughly familiar with conditions here I should not advise you to come
here for the purpose of settling as a large land owner. I certainly should not
advise your coming here under any conditions until some personal represen-
tative of yours had traveled about and himself looked over the land. If your
boy were old enough I should advise his doing this, but if he is not old
enough then someone else should do so. I have seen so much suffering come
to people of cultivation and refinement not accustomed to living hard and
not accustomed to manly labor who have settled here, that I am very loath
to advise such a person to come over and embark his or her little fortune
in a life of a totally new type. Very respectfully yours

3937 * to Leslie mortier shaw Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram: Private Washington, June 12, 1906

Am much annoyed at the publications in the newspapers which look as if I
were interfering through you in the Iowa factional contest. As you know
I simply acquiesced in your decision not to go to Syracuse University in
view of Chancellor Day’s repeated statements. I did not know and do not
know now the purpose of the meeting at Davenport. My own preference
would be that you should keep entirely out of the factional fight m Iowa
while in my Cabinet; but I do not feel like asking you this . 1 1 do, however,
feel that you should make it clear beyond all possibility of doubt that you
are acting entirely upon your own responsibility as to the part you take in
this contest, and that the administration is in no way concerned in the posi-
tion; and m view of the talk about this particular meeting at Davenport I
do not think you had better take part in any other meeting which has any
bearing upon the factional contest, certainly not without previous consulta-
tion with me. Please treat this telegram as strictly private.

1 Shaw’s outspoken protectionism had again embarrassed the Administration. The
Secretary had defended the Dingley Tariff to Iowa audiences in an active campaign
to prevent the renomination of Governor Cummins, who was strongly advocating
free steel, free hides, free lumber, and reciprocity with Canada. Shaw had been
reported as saymg that he was authorized to speak for the national Administration
(New York Press , June 3, 1906) The controversy m low a over his role m the
campaign reached its peak when he canceled a scheduled speech at Syracuse Uni-
versity in order to address an anti-Cummms meeting at Davenport. Although recent
attacks on Roosevelt’s attitude toward Standard Oil and the meat packers by
Chancellor James Roscoe Day of Syracuse m part provoked this cancellation, Cum-
mins’ supporters held that Shaw was primarily concerned with defeating the gover-
nor. Their protests induced Loeb to assure Charles Grilk of the Iowa Republican
Central Committee that Shaw spoke only for himself (Washington Post, June 14,
1906; Des Moines Register and Leader , June 16, 1906). This disclaimer and Roose-
velt’s admonition to Shaw doubtless contributed to Cummins’ victory.

297

39 3 8 * to james wolcott wadsworth Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 15, 1906

My dear Mr. Wadsworth: In the first place I wish promptly to acknowledge
the one portion of your letter in which you are in the mam right. I was m
error m the statement, which I accepted from Senator Beveridge, that there
was no provision for making the plants accessible at all hours to the inspec-
tors. The provision was put m in another place, but it is not as good as the
original provision. The court provision is the one to which I most object;
although by no means the only one to which I object; it is one of many. As
regards this I wish to repeat that if deliberately designed to prevent the
remedying of the evils complained of, this is the exact provision which the
friends of the packers and the packers themselves would have provided. It
is absurd to assert that any such provision is needed. Why have you not put
such a provision in the post-office law as it affects fraud orders, m the law
as it affects fraudulent entries of homesteads, &c , &c.> Congress cannot take
away the constitutional right of the packers, or of anyone else, to the pro-
tection of the courts. But such a provision as that under consideration does
not represent a desire to secure the constitutional rights of any man. It rep-
resents doubtless, m some cases, an honest though wholly mistaken convic-
tion; m other cases it represents a deliberate purpose to interfere with effec-
tive administration by trying to provide that the courts shall m reality do
administrative work which they would be the first to assert their inability
to perform. If the bill as you reported it from the Committee were enacted
into law, you would have the functions of the Secretary of Agriculture
narrowly limited so as to be purely ministerial, and when he declared a
given slaughterhouse unsanitary, or a given product unwholesome, acting
on the judgment of the Government experts, you would put on the judge,
who had no knowledge whatever of the conditions, the burden of stating
whether or not the Secretary was right In Chicago, for instance, you would
make any judge whom the packers chose to designate, and not the experts
of the Department of Agriculture, the man to decide on any question of
any kind which the packers thought it worth while to dispute. (You may
possibly remember the recent judicial decision in Chicago m which the pack-
ers were concerned.) I wish to repeat that this provision is, in my judgment,
one which if enacted into law will nullify the major part of the good which
can be expected from the enactment of this law. You assert that the packers
insist upon having a rigid inspection law passed. If they sincerely desire a
rigid inspection law, they will insist upon this provision being taken out.
Leaving it in is incompatible with «enacting» a properly efficient law.

To so much of your letter as speaks of my having made innuendos about
a committee of the House, or of your knowledge of the English language,
&c., it is not necessary to make any answer You state that if I or my advisers
will point out specifically wherein the bill fails to accomplish my purpose,

298

“it will be promptly remedied.” I am happy to tell you that I have today
seen a member of your Committee, Mr. Adams, 1 seeing him by request of
the Speaker, and I went over with him, together with Mr. McCabe 2 and
Mr. Reynolds, the various points m which the bill as you have reported it
fails to accomplish our purpose, and made the specific recommendation nec-
essary in each case to remedy the failure; and in each case Mr. Adams stated
that he personally would accept the alterations we proposed. He agrees with
me that the court review proposition should be excluded. He agrees as to the
dozen other changes which we think should be made. If these changes, which
Mr. Adams says he thinks should be adopted, are adopted, your amendment
will become as good as the Beveridge amendment — in Mr. McCabe’s opin-
ion, somewhat better than the Beveridge amendment is if unchanged. I care
not a whit for the language of the amendment. What I am concerned with
is to have it accomplish the object I have in view, namely, a thorough and
rigid, and not a sham, inspection. In my judgment the amendment as re-
ported by you fails to accomplish this object; whereas the Beveridge amend-
ment, and the House amendment with the changes which Mr. Adams has
stated he will gladly accept, both substantially accomplish the purpose I
have in view. I will accordingly gladly accept either, or accept any altera-
tion of either or of both which will accomplish this end. Yours truly

3939 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 15, 1906

My dear Senator: All right — I have authorized the publication of my letter
to Mr. Wadsworth.

Now, one more word about your Fourth of July speech. I notice from
time to time that there are still statements in the papers to the effect that you
are speaking for me. I do wish you could make it understood that I have not
seen your speech and am not in any way responsible for it. For me to make
this understood would look as if I were in some way repudiating you, and
so I want you to make it understood in some way yourself. Have it under-
stood that you are speaking as for instance your colleagues on the Commit-
tee, Lodge or Spooner, might be speaking, and that I have not seen your
speech and am not responsible for it any more than I would see or be re-
sponsible for one of theirs under like conditions. Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] I have just heard from Wadsworth. The statement I

1 Henry Cullen Adams, Republican representative from Wisconsin, 1903-1906, had
previously been State Dairy and Food Commissioner, 1895-1902 He was an active
proponent in Congress of the meat inspection law, the Adams Act for agricultural
research, the Food and Drugs Act, and the Statehood Bill

2 George P. McCabe, solicitor for the Department of Agriculture, with John R.
Mohler, chief of the Pathological Division and Rice P. Steddon, chief inspector of
the Bureau of Animal Industry, had made the first investigation of the packing
houses.

299

made on. your representation, about the failure to allow our agents access to
the packing buil ding s, proves unfounded; under the circumstances I do not
deem it best to publish the letter.

3940 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE RoOSeVelt Mss.

Perso nal Washington, June 16, 1906

My dear Senator Beveridge: I have just received your letters. There is a
slight difference between the inspection clause contained in your amend-
ment and the House amendment. 1 1 think yours is preferable, but the differ-
ence is not vital. If I tried to make the claim that my statement in my letter
to Wadsworth was accurate I should have to regard myself as disingenuous.
If you knew that the clause, although in slightly altered form, was actually
in the Wadsworth amendment, you should certainly have informed me. If
you did not know it, then the proper course for you is the course that I
have followed — simply to admit that you were in error.

Yesterday afternoon I saw Congressman Adams of Wisconsin, who had
signed the majority report. Mr. McCabe and Mr. Reynolds were both pres-
ent. Congressman Adams was most reasonable. He accepted all our amend-
ments excepting on the question of the payment of fees, and here he said he
would accept the so-called Cowan compromise, which, as I have already told
you, was entirely satisfactory to me. I am not prepared to say that it is bet-
ter than the provision that the packers themselves should pay the fees, al-
though a ‘number of the best men I know, including Attorney General
Moody, think that it is. But it is in my judgment as good.

It appears that Cromer, 2 whom you described as being the head and
front of the opposition to the majority report, had himself succeeded in
putting into the majonty report the very objectionable clause striking out
the provisions of the civil service act, which would in many cases insure the
choice of inspectors who would be indirectly nominated by the packers.

I cannot too often repeat that I am not in the least concerned with the
phraseology of these amendments I do not care whether they follow the
phraseology of your amendment, or of the House Committee amendment
with the alterations which Congressman Adams has agreed to accept. I am
concerned with getting the result, not with the verbiage. There should be
one or two changes in your amendment anyhow, including above all as
vital the striking out of the statement that the decision of the Secretary
shall be final; because this might be held to vitiate the whole act. Mr. McCabe

1 The Beveridge Amendment stated that there should be inspection while the House
amendment provided that the Secretary of Agriculture “at his discretion” might order
inspection.

* George Washington Cromer, Republican representative from Indiana, 1899-1907

300

regards the House amendment with the changes made as being better than
your amendment. Mr. Reynolds regards it as good. I am content to take
either one or the other, or any modification of either that will accomplish
the same purpose.

I especially do not want to get into an obstinate and wholly pointless
fight about utterly trivial matters, or about matters as to which we may
ultimately find ourselves forced to yield. This is exactly what was done in
the case of the statehood bill. Two years ago I recommended that the first
Foraker amendment be adopted. If this had been done at that time the whole
fight would have been over and we would have been spared two years of
purposeless wrangling and waste of time. Two months ago Aldrich and
Crane came to me with practically the very amendment that was ultimately
adopted. You informed me that I must on no account accept it. Accord-
ingly I refused. You and everyone else finally adopted it, and the first re-
jection of it merely caused a pointless waste of time for two months, and
put us in a not very dignified position. I do not wish to repeat such an error
in connection with this bill, nor to see the experience of the rate bill re-
peated, where the contest finally became one about the difference between
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and where the amendment finally adopted
with the hearty assent of Aldrich and the grudging assent of the wildest
champions of the bill, did not by one iota vary the bill as it was reported
from the Senate Committee against the frantic protest of Aldrich and with
the equally frantic joy of its special champions. Sincerely yours

3941 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 16, 1906

My dear Mr . Speaker: This enclosed bill for the enlisted men of the army and
navy is so important that I venture to call it to your special attention.
Nothing would do more to raise the character and tone of the enlisted men
of the army and navy than such a measure as this, and they are peculiarly a
people who have no one specially interested in them and who must trust to
justice and the abstract sense of right of the people at Washington. I earnestly
hope that this bill will be passed. It is pre-eminently fair and just. 1

Let me heartily congratulate you upon the excellent bit of work you did
m sending up Representative Adams on the meat inspection bill. He is a
square, honest, sensible fellow who knows his business and wants to do right,
and I had no difficulty in coming to a satisfactory agreement with him.
Sincerely yours

1 This bill, providing for the retirement of noncommissioned officers and enlisted
men, had passed the Senate. Placed on the House calendar, it was held over until the
next session of Congress and then enacted.

301

3 94 2 * T0 calvin cobb Roosevelt Mss ,

Confidential Washington, June 1 6, 1906

My dear Mr. Cobb : 1 1 trust that Governor Goodmg 2 understands my hearty
and deep sympathy with, and appreciation of, the work he is doing m striv-
ing to bring to trial the men charged with the murder of ex-Govemor Steu-
nenberg. I appreciate that he is doing this literally at the peril of his life.
For a dozen years there has been in parts of the Rocky Mountain regions a
reign of terror in which officers and leading members of the Western
Federation of Miners have been foremost, and these men and their allies
have again and again by assassination removed from their path men who
were or had been valiant in opposing their criminal misconduct. Ex-
Governor Steunenberg was their most noted victim. They will, if they are
given the chance, and unless they are cowed, certainly endeavor to make
Governor Gooding another victim. I wish you to assure Governor Gooding
that every honorable and decent man, whether wageworker or capitalist,
who has taken the trouble to find out what the facts are, is his hearty sup-
porter. I cannot express the keen indignation I feel with certain men of good
position who, because they have not taken the trouble to find out the facts,
have been lukewarm in supporting him or even hostile to him. I had made a
thorough investigation of his conduct in connection with procuring from
Colorado the men accused of this murder, by an Assistant Attorney General,
and he reports that the Governor’s conduct has been m all respects exactly
what it should be. At the proper time, if necessary, this report will be made
public. I have been outraged at the attitude of certain labor organizations in
extending their sympathy to the men accused of this crime, Moyer, Hay-
wood and their allies. It is conduct precisely on a par with, but even worse
than, the action of the Chicago Board of Trade in champiomng the beef
packers at this moment. In one case as m the other there is a complete willing-
ness to sacrifice justice and condone or approve infamous wrongdoing,
provided only the man of one’s own class, capitalist in the one case and labor
man in the other, can be saved from suffering the penalty of the law. Moyer
and Haywood are entitled to an absolutely fair trial and if innocent of this
crime, to an acquittal in spite of their black record of wrongdoing in the past.
But this black record of wrongdoing should be enough to warn any man to
extend no sympathy to them and to see to it that they simply get the justice
to which any accused man is entitled. If the Governor or the court fail to
give them this justice, I would be myself the first to protest, just as I should
protest against any injustice to any monopolist in the land no matter what
that monopolist’s record in the past had been.

1 Calvin Cobb, Idaho Republican, since 1 889 editor and publisher of the Boise Idaho

Statesman .

2 Frank Robert Gooding, Republican Governor of Idaho, 1904-1909, senator, 1921-

1928

302

In confidence, I wish you would tell the Governor that I do hope he will
most carefully guard against falling into the grave errors that the Governor
of Colorado fell into in 1903 and 1904. If I had been in Governor Peabody’s
place I would have cinched the Western Federation of Miners until it
looked like an hourglass, but I would have cinched the big corporations on
the other side just as tight. For instance, the failure to insist that the legisla-
ture should obey the will of the people and pass the eight-hour law, and if
it did not do so to keep it in session every day of the whole time for which
it was elected, was in my judgment unpardonable. In the same way the
failure to exact the quickest justice for the looting of the miners’ co-opera-
tive store was in my judgment unpardonable. There are plenty of unscrupu-
lous and lawless corporations of great wealth, and some of those in the
Rocky Mountain States are as unscrupulous and lawless as any I have ever
known. I should handle them without mercy where they do wrong, but
where the Western Federation of Miners does wrong, on the other side, I
should handle it equally without mercy. I cannot express my contempt and
indignation for the men like Norman Hapgood who, sitting in their editorial
sanctums, wholly without any experience with the rough and dangerous
side of life, and with to their account the minimum credit of manly work,
yet condemn, explicitly or implicitly, men like the Governor, who is doing
the work of civilization on the dangerous frontier of our social life.

I enclose you copies for your own private information of my letter to
the Department of Justice requesting the investigation by Assistant Attorney
General Robb and of Assistant Attorney General Robb’s report. Sincerely
yours

3943 * TO JAMES ALBERTOS TAWNEY Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 17, 1906

My dear Mr . Tawney: I thank you for your letter of the 15th instant. If Mr.
Williams should make his protest again, as far as I am concerned I should be
entirely willing to have a provision put in that none of the $25,000 ap-
propriated should be for the President’s own railroad ticket, his own food,
and his own accommodations on the train. In other words, if the House
feels that the President should pay for his own traveling expenses I would
be more than delighted to do so. Then the entire $25,000 will be paid for the
traveling expenses of the clerks, stenographers and other governmental
employees who are obliged to go with me, for the newspapermen, including
the photographers, who are also on the train, and for the Governors, Sena-
tors, Congressmen, and occasional private citizens who in each state join me
on the train. If I travel as I intend to next year my own ticket, food, and so
forth, will not cost a thousand dollars, and at least $24,000 will go for the
other people. The extra cost of the private train comes, not because of my
ticket, but because of the other people who go upon it, and because I have

303

to suit my movements to the institutions, the bodies of citizens, and so forth,
before whom I appear, and therefore cannot use the regular trains. A Presi-
dent traveling on a regular train would completely interrupt the traffic, and
the railroads would in most cases be not only unwilling but unable to have
him do so. 1

Mr. Jefferson is said to have on one occasion traveled on horseback.
Personally, I should always rather travel on horseback than on a special tram
— but I would not cover as much ground. Jefferson was not, however, re-
quired to furnish fifty additional horses for the government employees,
newspapermen, Governors, Senators, Congressmen and outsiders who went
along with him, nor did he have to furnish accommodations for all of them
throughout the trip. Sincerely yours

3944 • to thomas collier platt Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 17, 1906

My dear Senator Platt: I have your letter of the 15th instant I am not yet
prepared to announce my decision about Mr. Hough, 1 but I must emphati-
cally dissent from your statement, that “it ought to suffice for me to simply
say that I prefer Young to Hough”; and furthermore that the appointment
would “be recognized as an affront to the senior Senator from the State of
New York”; and furthermore from your statement running as follows. “You
and I disagreed some years ago upon a previous judicial appointment in this
District. Any fair-minded lawyer, or observer, if he were honest, would
tell you today that the appointment which was made was a mistake from the
standpoint of superior administration.” As to this last statement, I presume
you refer to Judge Holt; and I take issue absolutely with you. I have taken
particular pains to inquire from all the members of the bar whose opinion I
regard as most worthy of attention, and it is practically unanimous that
Holt is an exceptionally fine Judge and head and shoulders above every other
man whom at that time it was possible to obtain for the position.

1 An appropriation of $25,000 in the Sundry Civil Bill for the expenses of the Presi-
dent for travel had drawn the fire of the Democrats, especially Congressman Stephen
Brundidge, Jr., of Arkansas and John Sharp Williams. Those opposing the appropria-
tion complained of Roosevelt’s wanderings and argued that, in any case, the proposi-
tion was illegal, for the Constitution provided that the salary or a President could
not be raised during his term Williams, invoking a rule of the House, succeeded in
having the item removed from the Sundry Civil Bill before Tawney and Grosvenor
had exhausted their case for it. Reintroduced in another form, however, the ap-
propriation was passed with only 68 dissenting votes, the rest of the difficult Demo-
crats agreeing, apparently, with Bourke Cockran, who observed that the Constitution
could take care of itself and the President could spend the money.

1 Roosevelt appointed Charles Merrill Hough, a New York City Republican, judge in
the Southern District of New York. For this office Platt had recommended first,
Thomas Ives Chatfield, Assistant United States Attorney in Brooklyn, who m
1907 was appointed a district judge in the Eastern District of New York, and second,
James Addison Young, district attorney of Westchester County.

304

In the next place, as to the “affront” to you, I do not understand how you
can make such a statement. It is my business to nominate or refuse to nomi-
nate, and yours together with your colleagues, to confirm or refuse to con-
firm. Of course the common sense way is to confer together and try to
come to an agreement. It is just exactly what I have been doing m this
matter. If we both do our duty then each will endeavour to obtain a man for
the position who is the best man under the circumstances that can be ob-
tained, and neither of us will insist upon any man for merely personal
reasons if there is good ground against him; nor upon any man who is not
the best man for the position. This is precisely the course I have followed
in reference to Holt, in reference to Stimson, and that I am now following
in reference to the Judge about to be appointed. I never saw Hough until
the other day. I have not the slightest interest in his appointment, save from
the standpoint of the bench and of the public. As you do not indicate any
possible objection to him, save that you insist upon having someone else, I
must decline to consider that there will be any affront to you involved in
appointing him.

Finally, I am sorry to say I must emphatically disagree with you and
disagree with your statement that it ought to suffice me to have you simply
say that you prefer Young to Hough. You add that “both men are admittedly
qualified for the position.” Here you say that Hough is qualified for the
position, but insist that your preference for Young should be enough to
settle the matter. I cannot consider such a proposition. I have not considered
my own individual preference and I cannot consider yours. Neither of us
is entitled to have his personal preference considered, and it is the duty of
both of us to disregard our individual preferences and take the man who will
be most acceptable to the public and the bar, who will be most likely to do
his work well and faithfully, showing exact justice to corporation and labor
union, rich man and poor man, and to the man who is neither a member of
a corporation or a labor union, and is neither rich nor poor. There is a very
strong sentiment among the members of the bar that Manhattan and not
Westchester should receive the appointment, almost all the court business
being from Manhattan. I shall look carefully through the qualifications of
Young, of Hough and of any other man who suggests himself to me, but I
cannot afford to let it be supposed that an appointment to the bench is to
depend upon the mere personal preference of a Senator any more than of the
President. Indeed the initiative in such cases as this must properly lie with
the President, not the Senator. Sincerely yours

3945 * to thomas collier platt Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 18, 1906

My dear Senator Platt: Your letter of the 18th renders it necessary for me to
add one more word to the matter. Mr. Loeb assures me that there is no truth

305

in the statement that he has been writing to Mr. Young’s friends that “we
must do something to save Mr. Parsons’ face”, and if he had so written, it
would have been without any authority from me. As a matter of fact, per-
sonally Mr. Loeb has strongly favored the appointment of the two men you
have recommended to me, first Chatfield and then Young. Of course I have
been desirous in all these matters to please Parsons, but I have been much
more desirous to please you If the facts permitted me to think that Young
was the better man to appoint, I should have been even more pleased than if
they forced me to feel that Hough was the better man to appoint, because I
would rather for many reasons have the man whom I thought to be the best
man one whom you recommended than one whom any Congressman recom-
mended. I am perfectly well aware that your judgment in this matter will
carry more weight than that of any other Senator; but I wish it to be
understood emphatically and categorically that I have not considered Mr.
Parsons, and cannot consider him, or yourself, or anyone else, to the extent
of putting his or their or your feelings above the matter of getting the best
and most competent man as judge for this position.

Let me repeat that it is absurd to suppose that I am trying to humiliate
you, and that it would not only be absurd but wicked to make the citizens of
New York and the bar of New York feel that no man had any chance for an
appointment to a judgeship unless he should be selected as a matter of
favoritism and personal pride, whether by you or by me. I am not consider-
ing your preference or my own, and still less Parsons’. I am considering and
intend to consider primarily the question as to who would make the best
judge. Sincerely yours

394 6 • TO RUSSELL ALEXANDER ALGER Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Washington, June 18, 1906

I earnestly hope that you will telegraph Knox or Spooner to pair you in
favor of a lock canal. This is a matter in which I take a deep interest, because
to declare for the proposed sea-level canal would be well-nigh ruinous to
the whole canal project. I most earnestly hope you will do as I have requested
at the earliest possible moment. Please answer. 1

1 Roosevelt, in behalf of the bill authorizing a lock canal m Panama, sent telegrams
similar to this to all Republican senators who were not to be m Washington for the
vote. This was for him an extraordinary gesture, adopted because the Democrats
were making much of the majority opinion of the board of consulting engineers
in favor of a sea-level canal The Isthmian Commission, however, particularly
Stevens, had persuaded Roosevelt and Taft to recommend the lock design which
the Senate approved by a close 36 to 31 vote. “After three decades of operation,” a
careful student of the canal has concluded, Roosevelt’s decision “appears fully vindi-
cated” For the most complete account of “the battle of the levels,” see Miles P
DuVal, And the Mountains Will Move (Stanford University, California, 1947), ch x.

3°6

3947 * to lyman Abbott Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, June 1 8, 1906

My dear Dr. Abbott: Just a word in addition to what I last wrote you. At
the risk of repetition let me say that I wrote you because I believe so entirely
in you and the Outlook. Harper's Weekly is the frank tool of the corpora-
tions. The Cosmopolitan is owned by Hearst, and, with articles in it from
men like David Graham Phillips, is the friend of disorder, less from principle
than from the hope of getting profit out of troubled waters; and there is
no element of conscience to appeal to in men who write lies for hire or who
hire others to he. The Norman Hapgoods and the Oswald Villards and the
like, and papers like Collier's Weekly and the New York Evening Post, and
still more those who edit and write for the Herald , the World , the Times ,
the Brooklyn Eagle, Hearst’s papers, and so forth and so forth, cannot be
reached by honest argument, and it is therefore of no use to try to get them
to uphold the standard of right. But the Outlook can and does hold aloft
such a standard.

Now I think it essential that we make it clear that we war on the evil of
human nature, whether shown in the labor man or the capitalist, in the tyrant
or in the assassin. Therefore we cannot afford by omission or softening to
make our assaults tell really only against one side. Just at this moment, for
instance, I am having an experience which exactly illustrates what I mean.
In my effort to correct the abuses in the packing industry I am met by a most
violent opposition, not merely from the packers — not merely from the
honest industries which they in part control, and sometimes oppress, but
which will undoubtedly suffer more or less when the packers suffer — but
also from great bodies of capitalists who are interested mainly through that
noxious feeling in which the socialists exult and which they call “class con-
sciousness.” The National Manufacturers’ Association and the Chicago Board
of Trade have written me violent protests in offensive language, stating that
the reports of the Government committees are false, that everything is clean
and perfect in Packingtown, and that all that is necessary is for the De-
partment of Agriculture to say so — in other words, for the Department of
Agriculture to lie Now these capitalist associations are doing just exactly
what the numerous labor organizations have been doing in flying to the
defense of Moyer and Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners in
connection with the effort to bring to justice the man charged with the
murder of ex-Govemor Steunenberg. They use the same arguments in each
case. One side says that “this is a sensational attack upon capital.” The other
side speaks of the “effort to coerce labor.” Each loudly proclaims that it only
wants justice; and each does its level best to create a feeling of public opinion,
and by direct and indirect pressure to create an apprehension among public
officials, which will frustrate justice. One works through the fear of assassina-

307

tion, joined with the fear of political destruction, the other through the fear
of political destruction, and the fear of business damage in addition. There
are of course honest men who get misled either by one cry or by the other.
There are plenty of cowardly or dishonest men who are only too anxious
loudly to champion one or the other side, and to do anything possible in
public or private life to prevent justice being done as against that side. But
what is necessary and at the same time what is exceedingly difficult, is to
steer the straight course, the only proper course, and to hold down each set
of would-be wrongdoers with a steady hand.

One point should always be remembered in connection with the beef
packers, by the way. I did not wish to make the report public. I had the
different Senators informed privately of the facts that would be shown, and
stated that if I could get proper legislation I would not make these facts
public until I could also make public the fact that the evils had been
remedied. The Senate passed the necessary legislation. But the packers,
through their tools in the House, held up the legislation, produced a sham
bill, and made it evident that the only chance to get a decent law was through
an aroused public feeling that could only act on full knowledge. It was the
packers themselves and their foolish or wicked friends who rendered impera-
tive the publication of the report, with its undoubted attendant harm to our
export business in meat. We can put this export business in meat on a proper
footing again only by proper legislation; and if we have this legislation I
will guarantee proper administration under it. Sincerely yours

3948 * TO GEORGE H. BROWN Roosevelt Ms$.

Washington, June 20, 1906

My dear Mr . Bro'um • 1 Mr. Harkins was separated from the service because
we were discontented with the way he had been running the office and with
the character of the men he had appointed. I am utterly disgusted with the
way in which the offices in North Carolina have been used. The effort has
been to treat them as weapons in the faction fight. I have appointed you be-
cause I hear you are a good man. If I find that you in any way come short
I shall be obliged at once to remove you. I expect you to keep out of the
faction fight and to refuse to permit the office force under you to be used in
any shape or way for political purposes. I hereby direct you to retain every
subordinate of yours who does his work well and is a decent and honest
man, and to appoint only men who are absolutely good men, and to appoint
these men without regard to their political affiliations. I explicitly forbid you
to consider the political affiliations, still less the partisan affiliations, of any
man under you when it comes to a question of retaining or removing him,
and I direct that you make your appointments solely with a view to the

1 George H. Brown was appointed in 1906 collector of internal revenue m Asheville,

North Carolina, in place of Herschel S. Harkins.

308

efficiency of the service. You are not to permit your office to be used in any
shape or way in the faction contest between Mr. Blackburn 2 and Mr. Black-
bum’s opponents. The use of the office you now hold, and of other offices,
for this purpose in North Carolina has been a scandal and a reproach to
the Republican party. It has got to stop. Unless you are prepared to accept
the office with the purpose of strictly complying with my directions as laid
down above, I must request you not to take it at all.

At your earliest convenience I would be glad to see you here. Sincerely
yours

3949 * TO GEORGE ROBERT CARTER Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 21, 1906

My dear Governor: I thank you for your two interesting and helpful letters.
In the first place let me say that the final paragraph of your letter of June 6th,
in which you speak as follows, exactly embodies my hope and purpose'

This is my aim To increase the population of these Islands with those who are
eligible to become citizens — units in our Republic, and to make conditions such
that they can each year earn a little more than they spend and give their children
greater benefits than they have enjoyed, that we may have a land filled with
happy homes of small agriculturists. To reach this end, different methods will be
suggested, and perhaps more than one must be tried before we find the best
solution. But m this work I have already the hearty support of some of the
largest sugar mterests here.

1 was not only interested but impressed by all that you said as to the land
question Of course you are bound to be attacked by both sides in your effort
to secure a cutting-up of the large estates into small homes, while at the
same time doing it with the minimum friction and hardship.

With hearty regard, Sincerely yours

3950 * to owen wister Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, June 21, 1906

Dear Dan: I have received a letter running as follows, which portrays what
has now happened m connection with the Cox family at Indianola:

“It will interest you to know that the Cox family, over whom such a
disturbance was made m connection with the Indianola, Miss., post office,
have started a bank in that same town which direct and reliable information
convinces me is in a preposterous condition. The bank has the confidence of
both races. It is a curious circumstance that while objection was made to this
black family being at the head of the post office, no objection is made to the
black man being president of a bank in the same town.

2 Edmond Spencer Blackburn, North Carolina Republican, congressman, 1901-1903,

1905-1907 His congressional district coincided with the internal revenue district

which Brown was to supervise

309

“A letter just received from a reliable banker in Mississippi contains the
following sentences:

“ ‘Now with reference to Mr. W. W. Cox, of Indianola, Miss., I beg to
advise that no man of color is as highly regarded and respected by the white
people of his town and county as he. It is true that he organized and is
cashier of the Delta Penny Savings Bank, domiciled there. I visited Indianola
during the spring of 1905 and was very much surprised to note the esteem in
which he was held by the bankers and businessmen (white) of that place.
He is a good clean man and above the average in intelligence, and knows how
to handle the typical southern white man. In the last statement furnished by
his bank to the State Auditor, his bank showed total resources of $46,000. He
owns and lives in one of the best resident houses in Indianola, regardless of
race, and located in a part of the town where other colored men seem to be
not desired. The whites adjacent to him seem to be his friends. He has a large
plantation near the town, worth $35,000 or $40,000. He is a director in Mr.
Pettiford’s bank at Birmingham, and I think is vice-president of the same.
He also owns stock in the Bank of Mound Bayou.’ ”

You will remember that in my letter before the last I furnished you full
facts about this case The Coxes are the new Negroes of the generation
that has grown up since the war, the educated Negroes, the very type to
which the Charleston “aristocrats” have objected and about which they lie
so unblushingly. The Indianola white people are of the stamp of these
Charleston people. Some of them took part in turning out, and die others
acquiesced in turning out, of office this woman. The Charleston papers went
into hysterics over my action, portraying it as part of my general plan
for “Negro domination,” “miscegenation,” and the like. Bands of valorous
“southrons” from Arkansas and other seats of culture volunteered to rush to
the defense of the imperiled white race in Indianola, and join in mobbing or
killing the colored postmistress who had already served there for six years
and who was backed by all their decent citizens. I told you what ultimately
happened. This woman and her husband came to the conclusion that perhaps
their death, certainly the destruction of their property, would follow any
effort of the woman to retain her office; and the Mayor and Sheriff said they
could not protect her. Out she went. Now the fantastic fools and moral
cowards who encouraged or permitted the mob to turn her out are deposit-
ing their funds in the husband’s bank and have him as a director in a white
bank, and she and her husband own one of the best houses in Indianola and
one of the best plantations in the neighborhood. Exactly what scheme of
morals or intelligence can justify the theory that the Coxes are excellent
bankers, should be encouraged as such, and are excellent postmasters up to
the time a mob objects, but that if the mob chooses to jeopardize them they
are not to be protected, I am really unable to understand; only the Charleston
people could! Ever yours

310

395 1 * T0 ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK RooSCVelt MSS.

Washington, June 22, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: Mr. Loeb tells me that this morning you called him
up and asked him if the Indian bill had been signed and stated that you were
sorry, because it ought to have been vetoed in view of late information you
had received. Naturally, this upsets me a good deal. You and I had spoken at
length together about this bill and about certain bad features m it, you men-
tioning two m particular. You then stated to me that a very thorough in-
vestigation was being made and that you would lay the results before me.
You did so, stating in your letter that the bill ought to be signed. I did not
sign it at once, however, because of information that Senator La Follette had
given me, which I sent to you, and asked for a report on these additional
matters. You reported to me that there was nothing in the La Follette charges
which would warrant my refusing to sign the bill, and after seeing you
yesterday I signed it. If it be true that there are additional matters in the bill
which would have warranted its veto, I think that your own Department
should have discovered them before. I need hardly say that it is an utter
impossibility for me to acquaint myself with, and go over all the details of a
general bill like this, and I must rely upon your Department. 1
Exactly what are the facts in the case^ Sincerely yours

3952 • TO WINTHROP CHANLER Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 23, 1906

Dear Winty: Edith and I were delighted with your letter. You say a lot
that I should have liked to have written to Dan but had not the heart to. I
was really sorry to have him write this book, because his other work has been
so very, very good. If Woody Kane stands as the real original for the North-
erner, then I think Dan might have made some allusion to Woody’s really
great qualities. I guess there is a good deal m what you say about Dan’s not
being a man of the world.

Probably we shall come out all right in the beef business, and if so we
shall have a great sum of substantive achievement as the result of the work of
this Congress.

We hated to have you leave last Sunday afternoon. We had just gotten
into a really satisfactory conversation. I hope it won’t be long before you

1 The President had just signed the Indian Appropriation Bill for the year ending
June 1907. Senator La Follette had objected particularly to the clause removing all
restrictions on the sale of lands belonging to the Five Civilized Tribes, excepting
land owned by full-blooded Indians This action, La Follette and many others be-
lieved, would make the Indians of mixed blood easy victims for white speculators
For a discussion of the legislation enacted for final settlement of the affairs of
the Five Civilized Tribes, see Debo, And Still the Waters Run , chs. 111, v, vi.

drift into our neighborhood again, either here or at Oyster Bay. Give our
love to your dear wife and to Laura and all. By George, Winty, you would
realize that I have a pretty nice nature if you understood how completely I
forgive you for looking as if you were under thirty while I am feeling like
a worn-out and crippled old man 1 Cabot, thank heaven, is getting very gray
about the hair and beard, and still continues to be a fit associate for me. Ever
yours

3953 - TO ALICE ROOSEVELT LONGWORTH Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 24, 1906

Darling Alice: I have just cabled Nick that if he and you go to Austria and
stop at Vienna, I want you to stop, however briefly, at Budapest. With this
end in view, write to Count Apponyi 1 or wire him through our Ambassador,
Francis. The Count has written me urging that he be given the chance of
seeing you both, and that you stop in Budapest so that you shall not seem to
ignore Hungary and pay heed only to Austria. If you go to Austria and
Hungary I should avoid stopping either at Vienna or Budapest, or else I
should stop at both, and if you do go let you and Nick listen smilingly to
anything that anyone, from an Austrian archduke to a Hungarian count, says
about the politics of the dual empire, but, as I need hardly add, make no
comment thereon yourselves. Of course you may not be going to Austria at
all, in which case all this is needless. I hope you will go to Paris; and indeed
I take it for granted that you will.

Also, I feel that after you have been back a little while it would be a
good thing for you to go to Cincinnati for a short time. Tell Nick I think
his people will like to feel that you have a genuine interest in the city and
come out there to make yourself one of Nick’s people. I have been watching
very carefully to see if there are any symptoms of this European trip having
hurt Nick at home. So far I have failed to find any, but of course his op-
ponents will do all they can to make it injure him, and though so far you and
he have carried yourselves so that no excuse has been offered for criticism,
still I think it would be just as well for you to make a visit to Cincinnati while
Nick’s canvass was on.

Apparently you have both had a great time. I took sardonic pleasure in
the fearful heartburnings caused the American colony in London, and
especially among the American women who had married people of title, by
the inability of the Reids to have everybody to everything. Nothing was
more delightful than the fact that some of the people who were not asked to
the dinner, but who were asked to the reception, hotly refused to attend the
latter. The Americans of either sex who live in London and Paris, and those
who marry titled people abroad, are, taking them by and large, a mighty poor

1 Albert Apponyi, Minister of Public Instruction m Budapest. For his previous

relations with Roosevelt see No. 3955.

312

lot of shoats, and the less you and Nick see of them the better I am pleased.
Of course there are exceptions, who are as nice as possible.

I have been having a series of rough-and-tumble fights in the closing days
of Congress, but it looks as if we were coming out pretty well. All the
children are at Oyster Bay, where Ethel is bossing the entire family, to
their profit and her pleasure. Mother and I have had lovely times here. We
breakfast and lunch on the portico and dine on the west terrace, unless the
weather is bad; and we have lovely rides together. Your loving father

3954 • to ethel carow Roosevelt Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 24, 1906

Darling Ethel: Mother is tom by conflicting emotions — regret at leaving
me and longing to see all of you. She is too cunning and pretty for anything,
and seems at the moment to be really well and enjoys the rides that we take
almost every afternoon. She has just disciplined me with deserved severity.
Except when the weather forbids we breakfast and lunch on the portico and
take dinner on the west terrace, which is really lovely. This afternoon we
spent an hour sitting under the apple tree by the fountain.

You will love Audrey; but I do not want Mother to ride her until you
have thoroughly tried her, for gentle though she is, she is a high-spirited
mare, and if she has not had much exercise will kick and buck a litde from
mere playfulness.

Tell Archie that the other day as Mother and I were driving out to the
horses we passed a large pile of fine sand on Sixteenth Street. There were
several boys on it, two of them already buried up to their waists, while the
others were industriously shoveling the sand still higher around them. The
two bowed with eager friendliness, and then we saw that they were the
Newberry twins.

Today as I was marching to church, with Sloan some twenty-five yards
behind, I suddenly saw two terriers racing to attack a kitten which was
walking down the sidewalk. I bounced forward with my umbrella, and
after some active work put to flight the dogs while Sloan captured the kitten,
which was a friendly, helpless little thing, evidendy too well accustomed to
being taken care of to know how to shift for itself. I inquired of all the by-
standers and of people on the neighboring porches to know if they knew who
owned it, but as they all disclaimed, with many grins, any knowledge of it,
I marched ahead with it in my arms for about a half a block. Then I saw a
very nice colored woman and little colored girl looking out of the window
of a small house with on the door a dressmaker’s advertisement, and I turned
and walked up the steps and asked them if they did not want the kitten.
They said they did, and the litde girl welcomed it lovingly; so I felt I had
gotten it a home and continued toward church.

I am concerned to hear that Phil got into a scrape and was bounced from

3*3

St. Marks. I hope it is only temporary. I am very sorry to learn that poor
Jack is still having hard work with his studies. It is not his fault at all.

There is nothing in Kermit’s school record to have warranted him in
trying to compress the last two years in one. Has the lordly Ted turned up
yet p Is his loving sister able, unassisted, to reduce the size of his head, or does
she need any assistance from her male parent^ Your affectionate father, The
Tyrant .

[ Handwritten ] «Chorus» of offspring (led by daughter) “For he is a
tyrant king”!

3955 * to Charles spencer Francis Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, June 25, 1906

My dear Mr. Ambassador : Events have shown that the immigration official,
Braun, whom Storer wholly failed to back up, had much justice on his side,
and that Storer was derelict in his duty in wholly failing to support him.
I am not pleased with the way the Austrian Government is behaving about
the immigration to this country and its efforts to prevent the immigrants
from becoming naturalized. You will want to watch this. The truth was that
Storer and Mrs. Storer became so infatuated with their imperial and arch-
ducal surroundings that they adopted an extreme reactionary attitude both
as regards Church and State, and wholly lost sight of American interests as
well as of the principles for which this Government stands. Among other
things they completely failed to remember that they were as much represent-
atives to Hungary as to Austria. It is a dual monarchy, and our relations
are as much with the Hungarian King as with the Austrian Emperor. They
knew nothing about the Hungarians at all. Now I am aware that it is a very
delicate matter to get into touch with the Hungarians under existing condi-
tions, and you must exercise extreme caution in doing so. Nevertheless, I
wish you to exercise this caution and judgment and get into touch with them
Please write to Count Apponyi, who has himself written to me in strict
confidence. Do not let anyone else know the fact that Count Apponyi has
written me. This is a very important matter. Do not allude to the fact to
Count Apponyi himself in any letter, and not in speaking unless he speaks to
you, but write to him and say you are anxious to see Budapest and to meet
His Imperial and Royal Majesty’s advisers of the Hungarian capital — or
rather, any of them whom Count Apponyi thinks it desirable that you should

314

meet; and that in any event you would like to meet Count Apponyi himself,
who has been such a warm friend of America, and of whom you have heard
the President speak so highly when the Count came over here with the Inter-
parliamentary Peace Congress. Of course in talking to these Hungarians do
not express any opinion yourself on the internal affairs of the dual empire,
but listen attentively to what they have to say and write it to me. I think
that so far as possible you had better see only the official advisers of the
Emperor; for these, though Hungarians, and devoted to the cause of Hun-
gary, are yet officially members of the Emperor’s Cabinet, and there can be
no objection to your seeing them while they are thus officially on good
terms with him, for the Hungarian ministers are carrying out his government.

I need not say to you that this is a mission in which you will need to show
great tact, judgment and discretion in doing what I have here outlined.

Pray present my regards to Mrs. Francis. Sincerely yours

39 56 • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 25, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: As I think it best that there should be a record of
our attitude in the Los Angeles water supply bill, I am dictating this letter
to you in your presence, and that of Senator Flint on behalf of the California
Delegation, of Director Walcott of the Geological Survey, and of Chief
Forester Pinchot. The question is whether the city of Los Angeles should be
prohibited from using the water it will obtain under this bill for irrigation
purposes Your feeling is that it should be so prohibited because the passage
of the bill without the prohibition might establish a monopoly in the
municipality of Los Angeles as regards irrigation, by permitting the munici-
pality to use the surplus of the water thus acquired, beyond the amount
actually used for drinking purposes, for some irrigation scheme.

Senator Flint states that under the proposed law Los Angeles will be
seeking to provide its water supply for the next half century, which will
mean that at first there will be a large surplus, and that in order to keep their
rights they will have to from the beginning draw the full amount of water
(otherwise the water will be diverted to other uses and could not be obtained
by the city) ; and while if the city did not need the water it would be proper
that the other users should have it, yet it is a hundred or a thousandfold
more important to the State and more valuable to the people as a whole if
used by the city than if used by the people of Owens Valley; Senator Flint
further says that the same water that is used for drinking and washing is also
used on innumerable little plots of land in and around Los Angeles for garden-
ing and similar purposes, and that to prohibit this would so nearly destroy
the value of the bill as to make it an open question whether the city either
could or would go on with the project; it being open to doubt whether the
words ''domestic use” would cover irrigation of this kind.

3i5

Mr. Walcott and Mr. Pinchot state that there is no objection to permit-
ting Los Angeles to use the water for irrigating purposes so far as there is a
surplusage after the city’s drinking, washing, fire and other needs have been
met. They feel that no monopoly in an offensive sense is created by munici-
pal ownership of the water as obtained under this bill, and that as a matter
of fact to attempt to deprive the city of Los Angeles of the right to use the
water for irrigation would mean that for many years no use whatever could
be made by it of the surplus water beyond that required for drinking and
similar purposes.

I am informed by Senator Flint that the law of California provides that
if a municipality sells water to people outside the municipality, it must be at
the same rate that it sells it to those within the municipality.

I am also impressed by the fact that the chief opposition to this bill, aside
from the opposition of the few settlers m Owens Valley (whose interest
is genuine, but whose interest must unfortunately be disregarded in view of
the infinitely greater interest to be served by putting the water in Los
Angeles) comes from certain private power companies whose object evidently
is for their own pecuniary interest to prevent the municipality from furnish-
ing its own water. The people at the head of these power companies are
doubtless respectable citizens, and if there is no law they have the right
to seek their own pecuniary advantage in securing the control of this
necessary of life for the city. Nevertheless, their opposition seems to me to
afford one of the strongest arguments for passing the law, inasmuch as it
ought not to be within the power of private individuals to control such a
necessary of life as against the municipality itself.

Under the circumstances I decide, in accordance with the recommenda-
tions of the Director of the Geological Survey and the Chief of the Forestry
Service, that the bill be approved, with the prohibition against the use of the
water by the municipality for irrigation struck out. I request, however, that
there be put in the bill a prohibition against the city of Los Angeles ever sell-
ing or letting to any corporation or individual except a municipality, the
right for that corporation or that individual itself to sell or sublet the water
given to it or him by the city for irrigation purposes. Sincerely yours

P.S. Having read the above aloud I now find that everybody agrees to
it — you, Mr. Secretary, as well as Senator Flint, Director Walcott, and Mr.
Pinchot; and therefore I «fimsh» with a far more satisfied heart than when
I started to dictate this letter.

3957 * to richard watson gilder Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 26, 1906

My dear Gtlder: I do not believe that Taft could say anything of value about
the tariff at present. He is not specially familiar with it. Like myself, he
would like to see the tariff revised, but, like myself, he feels that there is

316

probably no matter now before the public as to which there is so much
sound and fury, relative to its real importance. A large part of the scream
about the tariff represents simply an effort to draw a red herring across the
trail of genuine economic reform within our own borders. Taft’s fa miliar ity
with the Panama Canal and with the Philippines is very, very great. No man
could speak with such authority on either subject, but I do not believe he
could do himself justice in an article on the tariff, and I know he ought not
to take the time to write the kind of article that alone would be worth his
writing.

Yes, Riis, Reynolds and Bishop are three as good public servants in their
several ways as any men we have ever had in this country. From what you
say I suppose the Evening Post or Collier’s or some such paper has been
attacking them. Always yours

3958 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 26, 1906

Dear Mr. Speaker: The enclosed telegram explains itself. I think I ought to
say that I have never known greater unity of opinion among outsiders than
this to the effect that the date of the year should be put on the cans. 1 Sin-
cerely yours

3959 • TO SHELBY MOORE CULLOM Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 26, 1906

My dear Senator Cullom: Having reference to the letter which Secretary
Root wrote you yesterday about the Algeciras Convention, I can only add
that I earnestly hope this matter will receive favorable report from the
Committee at this session. I am literally unable to understand how any
human being can find anything whatever to object to in this treaty; and to
reject it would mean that for the first time since the adoption of the Constitu-
tion this Government will be without a treaty with Morocco. It seems in-
credible that there should be a se nous purpose to put us in such a position. 1
Sincerely yours

1 The telegram enclosed was from James Bronson Reynolds.

1 Root had written Cullom, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, that
the Algeciras Treaty was merely a modification of the Treaty of 1880 Failure to
ratify it. Root maintained, “would put the Government of the United States in a
most hu milia ting position in the eyes of all the rest of the civilized world. . . .”

The Secretary of State previously had authorized Henry White to incorporate
a United States reservation to the treaty, disclaiming any American political interests
m Morocco or responsibility for enforcement of the treaty.

The treaty, with an amendment reiterating Root’s reservation, was approved by
the Senate m December 1906, see Jessup, Root, II, 59-60.

317

39<5o * TO EUGENE HALE

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, June 27, 1906

My dear Senator Hale: I have written Senator Cullom about the Algeciras
matter, and I now write you. I would write to Senator Allison but he has
gone home. In accordance with what you said to me, I urged upon him as
strongly as I knew how to go away at once and take a complete rest.

I did not suppose that there would be or could be any opposition to this
Algeciras treaty; but apparently some of the Democrats are inclined to make
trouble. If you can help us out with them I earnestly hope you will do so.
As you know, we took part in this Algeciras Convention simply because we
were already signatories of the existing Convention and if we had failed to
do so all our treaty rights would have disappeared, just as they will all disap-
pear now if there is a failure to ratify the Algeciras treaty prior to the 3 1st of
December. We have had treaties with Morocco continuously since before we
adopted the constitution. As far as we are concerned the Algeciras .treaty
simply secures us commercially, and as regards the individual rights of our
citizens, the same rights as other nations have; that is, commercially it gives
us the open door; and we explicitly disclaim in the treaty any responsibility
for interfering in any shape or way to keep order, that is the treaty simply
gives us the open door and does not impose any obligations whatever upon
us. I do not know what grounds of opposition have been announced to the
treaty — indeed I do not know what opposition could be made to it, save
through a misapprehension as to the facts; but it is so important that we
should have action upon it that I venture to write you and to ask your
great influence to that end. Sincerely yours

3961 'TO WHITELAW REID RoOSCVelt MSS .

Confidential Washington, June 27, 1906

My dear Reid: I have just received your letter . 1 1 was uneasy simply because
in view of the rather delicate — or as you would say, hazardous — nature
of my letter, I did not wish to run any risk of its going astray. In view of
what you say you are at liberty to show all of my letter that you deem
proper to show, to the King and Sir Edward Grey. I think you ought to let
them both know confidentially of the utter worthlessness of Durand. I sup-
pose you will have to paraphrase what I said to you about Durand, but
there is no harm in their knowing how strongly I feel; and especially that if
he had been such a man as Spring Rice or such a man as Speck or Jusserand,
I would have told him at every turn just what was being done, and the
Foreign Office at London would have known every move. In short, I would
have consulted him just as I consulted Jusserand.

I like the Kaiser and the Germans. I wish to keep on good terms with

1 See Cortissoz, Reid , II, 330-332.

318

them. I agree with you in thinking it even more important that we should
keep on good terms or better terms with the English; but of course when the
English are such fools as to keep a man like Durand here while the Germans
have a man like Speck, it increases the difficulty of my task.

In this Algeciras matter you will notice that while I was most suave
and pleasant with the Emperor yet when it became necessary at the end I
stood him on his head with great decision. Of course the vital feature of
what I did was the verbal statement to Sternberg that in case the Emperor
declined to submit to what was reasonable I should have to make public all
of our correspondence in order to justify my position in entering into the
negotiations. This last statement will in all probability never be made public.
Similarly, I suppose we shall never make public the fact of the vital step in
connection with the Venezuela business four years ago, when the English,
again with their usual stupidity, permitted themselves to be roped in as an
appendage to Germany in the blockade of Venezuela. I finally told the
German Ambassador that m my opinion the Kaiser ought to know that
unless an agreement for arbitration was reached, American public opinion
would soon be at the point where I would have to move Dewey’s ships,
which were then m the West Indies, south, to observe matters along Vene-
zuela; and that I would have to let it be known publicly that under conditions
as they then were I would have to object even to temporary possession of
Venezuelan soil by Germany, unless such possession was strictly limited to
say three or four days or a week. This brought him to terms at once . 2

I think you know the steps I took to make the British come to their
senses in the Alaskan business. It would have been most foolish for them not

3 This passage is to be compared with Roosevelt’s letter of ten years later to W. R.
Thayer (Thayer, Hay, II, 411-417) In part this letter reads “I then asked him to
inform his Government that if no notification for arbitration came within a certain
specified number of days I should be obliged to order Dewey to take his fleet to
the Venezuelan coast and see that the German forces did not take possession of
any territory.” To this von Holleben responded with grave concern for conse-
quences so serious he “dreaded to give them a name” His concern was so great
that he neglected during the next few days to inform his government. When he
told Roosevelt this, the President reported that “I informed him ... it was useless
to wait as long as I had intended, and that Dewey would be ordered to sail twenty-
four hours m advance of the time I had set. . . . However, less than twenty-four
hours before the time I had appointed for cabling the order to Dewey, the Embassy
notified me that His Imperial Majesty the German Emperor had directed him to
request me to undertake the arbitration myself”

The question of whether Roosevelt ever really sent an ultimatum to the Kaiser
has for long bemused historians. The weight of professional opinion at the moment is
that he did not, m spite of his own recollection of the situation as told to Thayer
sixteen years after the event The above letter to Reid does however suggest some
basis for the President’s later claim, a claim considered by many to be baseless.

Von Holleben saw Roosevelt on December 6, two weeks before Germany ac-
cepted the principle of arbitration It seems entirely probable that the President
talked to the ambassador at that time in somewhat the tones he describes m this letter
written four years after the event. As time passed, his memory, hke that of other men,
apparently strained out the more tentative elements m his statement, leaving him in
1916 with the ringing words of the ultimatum.

319

to do as I desired; for though it was to our interest, it was really to their
interest also, and Canada had not a leg to stand on. Similarly, m these New-
foundland matters I am very much afraid that the English are drifting where
we shall have to send a warship up to Newfoundland to look after our
interests.

As for the Germans, I really treat them much more cavalierly than I do
the English, and I am immensely amused at the European theory (which
cannot, however, be the theory of the French Government) that I am taken
in by the Kaiser. I am very polite with him, but I am ready at an instant’s
notice to hold my own. In the same way my policy with Japan is to be
scrupulously polite, to show a genuine good will toward her, but to keep our
navy in such shape that the risk will be great for Japan if it undertakes any
aggression upon us.

Do tell Mrs. Reid for me how heartily I appreciate the way m which
both of you have done everything for Alice. She must have had a fine time.
I read with much amusement of the heartburnings among the American
colony, and especially among the Americans who had married Englishmen,
about your dinner invitations. As you know, I do not like the Americans who
reside abroad, and in the case of an American woman who marries an
Englishman (and still more another foreigner) I always feel that the presump-
tion is against her. There is at least cause for feeling that explanations are
required before we can accept her motives and actions as proper. Therefore
you can readily understand that the less Alice saw her emigre countrymen
and countrywomen the more I was pleased, and the heartburnings among
them simply amused me.

Again thanking both Mrs. Reid and you, believe me, Sincerely yours
3962 ’ TO WILLIAM PETERS HEPBURN Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 27, 1906

My dear Colonel Hepburn . Secretary Taft has just been in to see me to
suggest that m the canal bill the Senate words “of the general type of lock
canal as recommended by the minority of the Consulting Board of Engineers”
be changed by adding thereto words equivalent to “as recommended by the
President and the Secretary of War.”

I do not think this is vital, 1 because I should in any event treat the ex-
pression of Congress as giving me a wide latitude m adopting the final plans,
so that, for instance, if ( we deemed it best to place the three locks on the
Pacific side at Miraflores instead of Sosa and dispense with the lake at Sosa
I should do so without hesitation, thus substituting a broad, sea-level channel
for the Sosa lake. But perhaps it would be well to put the words in, not
that they w T ould alter my action, but so they might avoid the chance of some

Neither, apparently, did Congress, for the bill was passed m the House without

amendment.

320

one of our friends who really is against the canal and wishes to hamper the
work upon it, being given the opportunity to yell about my not having
followed the instructions of Congress. Such opposition would of course not
be honest; but we all know that a great deal of the opposition to this canal
is not honest, and we want to forestall the chance of anything crooked being
falsely alleged, so far as possible. Sincerely yours

3963 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSCVelt MSS .

Washington, June 27, 1906

My dear Mr . Secretary : The enclosed telegram from Messrs. Shonts and
Stevens explains itself. For six months the work of the Commission has been
delayed pending the investigation here m Washington Frankly, I can see but
one possible object m the proposed investigation on the Isthmus, and that is
to delay still further getting to work on the canal. 1 If there is a purpose that
the canal shall not be built then it seems to me that those having this purpose
should in straightforward and manly fashion say so, and let us have a square
fight as to whether or not the work of the canal is to be stopped. But to try
to achieve the purpose of stopping work on the canal by indirect and under-
hand methods such as the proposed investigation, when there is not a thing
of any kind to investigate and when everybody knows that there is nothing
to investigate, seems to me to be entirely unworthy. I wish with all emphasis
to say that it is impossible to expect decent results m doing the canal work if
the effort by the opponents of the canal to interrupt and hamper the work
is permitted to be successful. I am perfectly willing to send a message to
Congress pointing out these facts, if you deem it proper. Sincerely yours

3964 * TO MARK A. RODGERS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 27, 1906

My dear Sir : 1 I have received your letter of the 23d protesting against cer-
tain federal officials taking part against statehood in the pending campaign in
Arizona.

I do not desire to coerce the action of any man in Arizona, whether he
does or does not hold my commission The federal officials are to have the

I The desultory hearings of the Senate Committee on Interoceamc Canals had been
concerned almost exclusively with testing the reliability of the published reports of
Poultnev Bigelow Bigelow, after a twenty-eight hour visit to the Isthmus, had
written in the Independent a sensational attack on all aspects of the work at Panama.
Roosevelt immediately had Stevens and Taft make a complete answer to these
charges Their reply, which the President forw arded to Congress, is printed as Part

II of the Annual Report of the 1 st Inman Canal Co?mmssion, for 1905. When Bigelow
was unable to prove any of his specific statements to the Senate committee, the
hearings ended See DuVal, And the Mountains Will Move , pp 202-203. Bigelow,
however, continued his attacks, see No 4009

1 Mark A Rodgers, secretary, Arizona Statehood Association.

321

same right as any other citizen to express their sentiments and vote as they
choose, though of course they are not to use their offices so as in any way to
control or influence the popular vote. Subject, however, to this last qualifi-
cation, their right to speech and action is untrammeled — just as much so as
with any private citizen.

It is proper, however, that having said this I should add my earnest hope
that the people of the Territory of Arizona in their wisdom will decide to
enter the Union as part of the great State of Arizona. No man can foretell
what will happen in the future, but it is my belief that if the people of Ari-
zona let this chance go by they will have to wait very many years before
the chance again offers itself, and even then it will very probably be only
upon the present terms — that is, upon the condition of being joined with
New Mexico. If the people of Arizona come in now they will achieve what
every self-respecting American ought to wish to achieve, that is, the right
of self-government. If they refuse what is proffered them — and what in my
opinion is proffered upon the only proper and permissible terms — they
condemn themselves to an indefinite continuance of a condition of tutelage.

I have a peculiar affection for the people of the four Territories which,
under the act of Congress I have just signed, now have the opportunity to
enter as two States into our Federal Union. These Territories are filled with
men and women of the stamp for which I grew to feel so hearty a regard and
respect during the years that I myself lived and worked on the great plains
and in the Rocky Mountains. It was from these four Territories that I
raised the regiment with which I took part m the Cuban campaign. Assuredly
I would under no circumstances advise the people of these Territories to do
anything that I considered to be against either their moral or their material
well-being. I feel that for them now to refuse to come into the Umon as
States would be at the best mere folly. Very wisely, the people of Oklahoma
and Indian Territory, and I believe the people of New Mexico also, have
abandoned an attitude which forbade their thus assuming the great privileges
and responsibilities of full American citizenship. I cannot too heartily express
my hope that the people of Arizona, exercising their sober second thought,
will come to look at the matter in the same light. Sincerely yours

39 6 j * to Joseph gurney cannon Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker: If there is an investigation of immigration, don’t you
think it would be a great deal better to have the investigation conducted
under the care of Commissioner General Sargent, if necessary joining for
some purpose Commissioner of Labor Neill with him — that is, having
the investigation conducted by the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of
Labor? It is very hard for a Congressional Committee dealing with a subject

322

as intricate as this to get good results. They haven’t any means of achieving
their purpose. Would it not be better to get all the facts through the bureaus
I have mentioned above, by whose aid the facts can be obtained as they
could not be obtained by a Congressional Committee, and then to have the
report, testimony and papers submitted to the Committee of Congress, so
that that Committee could make up its mind exactly what action ought to be
taken? 1

I have been thinking over what you said to me this morning and I think
I ought to write you this. I have talked the matter over with Messrs. Sargent
and Neill, who are experts, and who very strongly believe that the method I
suggest is the only one that would enable us to make real progress.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

39 66 * to Charles Patrick neill Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, June 28, 1906

To the Commissioner of Labor: I desire as full an investigation of the whole
subject of immigration as the facilities at hand will permit. I wish that you
would at once take the matter up with the Commissioner General of Immigra-
tion; that your two Bureaus co-operate along the lines I suggested at our
recent conference; and that you submit your reports to me as soon as is
practicable.

I want the investigation to be as thorough and as comprehensive as you
can make it, and I direct the closest co-operation between the two Bureaus
to this end. The Bureau of Immigration will, of course, have to carry on the
necessary investigations abroad alone through its special agents, but in the
study of conditions in this country the two Bureaus ought to be able to co-
operate very closely and assist each other very materially. However, I want
you and Mr. Sargent to plan the whole investigation conjointly and to con-
sult together constantly during its progress concerning all of its phases. In
a word, I want you to carry on a joint investigation of the whole subject of
immigration, to such extent as the resources of each Bureau will permit, and
to use such resources as your judgment may dictate.

Carefully avoid all unnecessary publicity in the carrying on of the
investigation. Please consider it a confidential investigation for my use, and
transmit your reports to me as soon as they are ready. 1

1 Congress in 1906 did not authorize any investigation of immigration. The next year,
however, it created the Dillingham Commission which ultimately rendered the
significant report that formed the basis for the reversal of American immigration
policy in the 1920’s.

1 These private, confidential reports to Roosevelt were never published. It is probable,
however, that they contained the same recommendations which, already made in the
annual reports of the Bureau of Immigration in 1905 and 1906, and repeated in 1907,
formed the basis for the immigration section of Roosevelt’s annual message m 1906.
See No. 3924

I have sent a letter similar to this to the Commissioner General of Immi-
gration.

3967 * TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 29, 1906

My dear Secretary Hitchcock * I should like your Department to report as
soon as possible the coal lands where the Department deems the coal deposits
of such value that we ought to withdraw the lands from entry. It is not
worth while doing this, in the absence of direct law on the subject, where the
coal is not of any very great value. But where the deposits are of such charac-
ter and amount as to make mines of real value, I desire that they be with-
drawn from settlement. 1 Sincerely yours

3968 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 29, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: Do get the best men in the Navy to go over that
turbine proposition. I do not know which turbine proposed is the best, and
as a mere outsider I cannot claim to have expert knowledge, of course; but
it does seem to me that we should get the very best engines that any ships
of their class will have for those new battleships. We ought to have turbines,
unless good reason to the contrary can be shown. 1 Sincerely yours

3969 • TO ROBERT MARION LA FOLLETTE Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 29, 1906

My dear Senator La Follette : This is a duplicate of the letter I am sending
to Senator Spooner. I have gone carefully over the proposition which you
submitted to me this morning, taking up at the same time the question of

1 Pursuant to this order to Hitchcock, over fifty million acres of coal lands were
temporarily withdrawn, as a protection from private exploitation, for government
evaluation and classification Later the President, m his annual messages of 1906 and
1907, and m a special message of February 13, 1907, urged Congress to pass legislation
permitting the government, while it owned and supervised the coal lands, to rent
mining privileges to private concerns No action was taken, however, until the
Withdrawal Act of 1910.

For discussions of the conservation of the national coal supplies during Roosevelt’s
administration, see Robbins, Our Landed Heritage , pp. 346, 358-359, Pinchot, Break-
ing New Ground , p 388; Roosevelt, State Papers , Nat. Ed. XV, 362-363, 451-452

Although the British had installed turbine engines on H.MS. Dreadnought ,
engineers of the U.S Navy reported to Bonaparte their dissatisfaction with the
results of tests made with some turbine models The Secretary, therefore, with
Roosevelt’s consent, opposed the installation of turbines on vessels then authorized,
including the US.S Delaware . While continuing their turbine experiments, the
Navy’s engineers resisted this innovation, partly, perhaps, as one observer has sug-
gested, because “the neatly-boxed turbines lacked the charm of the old push-and-pull
reciprocating engine ”

324

the Marinette post office in accordance with the request of Postmaster Gen-
eral Cortelyou, who has felt very strongly that that post-office case should
be disposed of m accordance with the well-settled custom in such matters.

At the outset let me say that of course in all that I speak of concerning
the suggestions for nomination, whether from Senators or Congressmen, it
must be always understood that I am myself the judge of the fitness of the
candidate suggested for nomination. I neither could, nor desire to, avoid my
responsibility for the nomination and therefore for the appointment if the
nomination is confirmed.

This morning both you and your colleague requested that the State be
divided into the Eastern and Western Judicial Districts, according to the
custom that has prevailed for many years, in the matter of recommendations
for nominations by the Senators, one Senator making the recommendations
for nominations in one district and one in the other. Each of you, however,
desired to be recognized as making the nominations in the Eastern District,
which contains the larger number of offices with, in the aggregate, the high-
est amount of salaries. The only two offices as to which nominations should
now be made are those for the marshal and pension agent, both of them
being in this Eastern District.

In the past. Senator Quarles suggested nominations for appointment in
the Eastern District and Senator Spooner in the Western District. In the one
Democratic Congressional District you and your colleague also differed as to
which should recommend for each half of the District; you contending that
you should receive that portion of the District formerly allotted to Senator
Spooner, and Senator Spooner making the opposite claim. On that occasion
I decided to continue the custom that had been in vogue, and allotted to
Senator Spooner his former district and to you Senator Quarles’ former
district. After thinking the matter over I think it just and fair to follow the
same course m the State as a whole, and accordingly I shall expect recom-
mendations for nominations from you from the Eastern District and from
Senator Spooner from the Western District. This means that you will sub-
mit to me at once recommendations for men to be appointed as marshal and
pension agent.

As regards the Marinette post office, the circumstances are that the in-
cumbent had a fair record but not a record so good that it would warrant
the Postmaster General m insisting upon his reappointment. The Postmaster
General accordingly followed the rule that obtains in Wisconsin as well as
elsewhere, of accepting the recommendation of the Congressman of the dis-
trict when the man recommended is fit. I am now settling on a permanent
basis these questions affecting the disposal of the offices so far as recom-
mendations by Senators and Members of Congress are concerned m Wiscon-
sin, and I must establish a general rule as regards Congressmen just as I have
established a general rule as above in regard to the two Senators. In accord-
ance with this general rule I shall direct that the recommendation of the

3 2 5

Congressman in the Marinette case be followed, and the man whom he has
already recommended will therefore be appointed. 1 The one thing on which
I shall insist is that the man shall be of high character and capacity. Sincerely
yours

3970 * TO ROBERT MARION LA FOLLETTE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, June 30, 1906

My dear Senator La Follette: It is due to you to say that the Marinette post
office case was not considered at the meeting that I had with you and Sena-
tor Spooner yesterday. I appreciate fully your feelings in the matter and
your request that anything should be done rather than that I should fail to
keep Mr. Stephenson’s friend in the Marinette post office. You have told me
that you would rather give up all the rest of the patronage than this case at
Marinette, because of your affection for Mr. Stephenson. My dear Senator,
if I were able to approach this from the standpoint of merely your wishes,
or of doing you the favor that you most desire, I should at once accede to
your request, reverse my action, give you this office, and turn the Eastern
District over to Senator Spooner. I am obliged to refuse, because after the
most careful consideration of the whole matter with Mr. Cortelyou I felt
that the other course — the course decided on in my letter of yesterday —
was the only one which substantially met the equities of this situation and
did not create a precedent which in my opinion would be damaging to the
public service m other post office situations.

Let me say in addition, as a personal matter, that except for the general
considerations set forth above, pertaining to the Post-Office Department, it
would have been to me a great pleasure, not merely on your account but in
view of Mr. Stephenson’s long and distinguished service to the party, to have
met his and your wishes in this matter. Sincerely yours

3971 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 30, 1906

My dear Senator Beveridge: I send you herewith the pen with which I signed
the agricultural bill, containing the meat inspection clauses. You were the

1 Political feeling ran high in Marinette, Wisconsin. There Isaac Stephenson, a
wealthy lumberman, first citizen of the town, Republican congressman, 1883-1889,
senator, 1 907-1 91 5, in 1900 had switched his allegiance from the Spooner to the
La Follette camp. This change of heart, accompanied by a shift in campaign contribu-
tions, occurred because Spooner had prevented Stephenson from reaching the Senate
m 1899 The resulting wounds were still unhealed in 1906 when Roosevelt recom-
mended John J O’Connell, a Spooner man, instead of L. S Patrick, who was
beholden to Stephenson and La Follette, for postmaster at Marmette La Follette’s
subsequent protest persuaded Roosevelt to withdraw the nomination, but at the
next session of Congress O’Connell was renominated and confirmed. La Follette, m
later years, doubtless regretted his action, for Stephenson broke with the progressives
in 1909, and m 1912 supplied his influence and contributions to Taft.

326

man who first called my attention to the abuses in the packing houses. You
were the legislator who drafted the bill which in its substance now appears
in the amendment to the agricultural bill, and which will enable us to put a
complete stop to the wrongdoing complained of. The pen is worth nothing
in itself, but I am glad to send it to you as the expression of my acknowl-
edgment of your services.

With all good wishes, believe me, Faithfully yours

3.972 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS*

Washington, Undated

Dear Cabot , How unerring Eliot is in his appreciation of the real needs of
the nation! How well it would be if we could have his trained intelligence
to guide us through — and into — the pitfalls! 1

3973 - TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 1, 1906

My dear Dr . Abbott : That is very nice of you. I only hope — what, how-
ever, I assume — that in your editorial 1 you have made it evident that you
as thoroughly disapprove of the attitude of many of these Rocky Mountain
corporations as I do. One of the great troubles I find is that the average man
seems constitutionally incapable of understanding that one not only may but
is imperatively bound to disapprove equally of the murderous lawlessness of
labor unions which degenerate into thugism of the Molly McGuire kind, and
of the practically as arrogant and greedy lawlessness of quite as noxious
.... a type shown by certain big corporations. Now and then the situa-
tion becomes such that a decent man has to oppose one, and now and then
the situation becomes such that he has to oppose the other. ... If there
is mob violence, for instance, the authorities have to put down mob violence
although the interests directly threatened may be those of a very wicked
corporation On the other hand a man may have to do as I have been doing,
that is, when they are «thus» embattled against the iniquity of great corpora-
tions, in spite of the fact that noxious demagogues are vociferously shouting
on the same side as he is acting. But in each case the man should, if possible,
make his position clear, and make it understood that he is attacking lawless-
ness and wrongdoing wherever found, and that it is simply an accident that
he happens to find it in one place at one time and in another place at another

1 Roosevelt appended this note to a letter of Charles W. Eliot in which Eliot pro-
tested against any form of immigration restriction. The date of Eliot’s letter, to

David A. Ellis, was June 19, 1906.

1 “Not a Labor War,” Outlook, 83 544-546 (July 7, 1906).

time. I notice, for instance, that Bryan has recently been stating that all trusts
must be destroyed, and so forth. Bryan has always been far more violent in
his denunciation of trusts than I have been. Cleveland in what he said was
at least as severe about trusts and big corporations as ever I have been. The
only difference has been that I have made my words good and have always
striven to be a little more decided in action than I was m speech. Cleveland,
moreover, did on occasions fiercely oppose the labor people when they went
wrong; but Bryan, La Follette, and others like them, so far as I know, have
always refused to attack labor people or to denounce their wrongdoing, no
matter how flagrant — for corporations, though their indirect influence may
be powerful, have practically no votes, while the labor vote is very strong
indeed. Faithfully yours

[Handwritten] .... The railroad rate bill, meat inspection bill & pure
food bill, taken together, mark a noteworthy advance in the policy of secur-
ing Federal supervision and control over corporations.

3974 • to frank irving cobb Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 3, 1906

My dear Mr. Cobb : 1 That is such a nice editorial of yours of July 2d that
I must send you a word of appreciation, especially because you touch on
what I regard as the vital work — that is, the administrative work, the work
of enforcing and administering the law. Under Knox we began and under
Moody (to whom too much credit cannot be given) we have gone on with
the enforcement of the law in connection with the misdeeds of big corpora-
tions, to an extent never before even approximated. The action of the De-
partment of Justice in the land cases of the west has really been equally
effective. But I think that quite as effective, perhaps even more effective, has
been the work which will attract but little notice, namely, the mere fact of
a thoroughly fearless, honest and intelligent administration of their respec-
tive offices by a large number of men such as Root, Taft, Moody and Cor-
telyou — such as Garfield, Pinchot, Lawrence Murray, Neill, Herbert Knox
Smith, Alford Cooley, Bacon, Newberry, Hoyt, and a great many local offi-
cers, district attorneys like Stimson in New York and Morrison in Chicago,
marshals like Ben Daniels in Arizona — and in short, a great variety of men
who, in different positions, are all doing their duty and more than their duty
with a hearty zeal and disinterestedness. I tell you, my dear Mr. Cobb, when
I look at the men I have named above and their like I feel we have got a
pretty good country with pretty good men in it! Ever yours

1 Frank Irvmg Cobb, one of the ablest journalists of his day, after 1904 m charge of

the editorial department of the New York World, and later, an intimate of President

Wilson.

328

3975 T0 benjamin ide wheeler
Private

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, July 3, 1906

My dear President Wheeler: Your letter was very interesting. I think you
are all right as to the foolishness of the business people. There was just one
way in which rebates could be effectively reached, and that was by rate leg-
islation. It was simply one side of the question. I “raised the issue arbitrarily”
in just the sense that Lincoln “raised” the slavery issue arbitrarily, when the
issue was the preservation of the Union, and it warrants much the same type
of denunciation.

Yes, it has been a great session; but I have precisely your feeling of
anxiety as to who is to take the leadership. Taft can. My own belief is that
Root, if elected President, would carry on the contest very much as Taft
and I would; but I do not believe we can persuade people that this would be
the case. I hate to have Taft go on the bench, great though I think his useful-
ness there would be, because just at the moment I am puzzled to see what
other leader is developing for the nomination; which of course under no cir-
cumstances would I take; and we are going to need to put our best foot for-
ward to beat Bryan.

I have directed the appointment of Lubm 1 as the American representative
to the agricultural institute at Rome. Faithfully yours

1 David Lubm, successful California merchant and fruitgrower, long-time proponent
of railroad regulation and federal subsidies for the transportation of agricultural
exports, founder, with the aid of the Italian government, of the International Insti-
tute of Agriculture for the exchange of agricultural information, United States
delegate to the permanent board of that institute from its mception until his
death in 1919.

The Duty of a Leader Is To Lead

July 1906— November 1906

3 97 6 * TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE
Personal

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, July 5, 1906

Dear Bonaparte: I have had to coldly refuse both letters of invitation. I shud-
dered slightly at the usual “Excellency” in the Mayor’s letter. Do tell the
Governor that I appreciate being addressed by him in the proper way for
an American President to be addressed 1 (No, don’t tell him this; he may not
have a sense of humor.)

Root has written me elaborate letters about his office and its running for
the next three months. 1 The rest of the Cabinet have disappeared into space
and given no sign, save a kind of legacy letter from our beloved Hitchcock,
who, I think, at the bottom of his heart would like to have me shut up all
the offices m Oklahoma and Indian Territory and stop all business in the
future State of Oklahoma until we could arrange to have the entire popula-
tion investigated for say from six to ten years by a special agent.

With warm regards to Mrs. Bonaparte, believe me, Faithfully yours

3977 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Oyster Bay, July 7, 1906

You are at liberty to inform Grocers’ Federation that under new law we
can and will guarantee the fitness in all respects of canned meat containing
Government stamp. If any trouble comes therewith protest can be made at
once not merely to sellers of goods but to United States Government itself.

3978 • to william sowden sims Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, July 7, 1906

My dear Captain Sims: Now and then I feel a little cast down and gloomy
about things, and in consequence it does me real good to receive a letter like
yours. 1 It is admirable that you should have made such progress in gunpoint-
ing. I have not the least fear of our getting into trouble with a foreign power
as long as we keep our navy in point of materiel up to the standard we are
now gradually attaining, and so long as we have the officers and men trained
as they evidently are being trained in such a matter as the development of
our naval marksmanship.

By George, how good it is to read and reread your letter! I am interested

1 Root on July 4 had left for the Pan American Conference at Rio de Janeiro and a
good-will tour of South America. The first trip of its kind, this mission was perhaps
the most effective of Root’s many successful efforts to win the friendship of the
Latin American countries. See Jessup, Root, I, 471-472.

1 The letter from the Inspector of Target Practice which so cheered the President
dealt with the startling improvement m target practice that had taken place since
the fall of 1902.

333

in your comparisons of our work with that of the British Navy. What do
you know of the German and Japanese work of the same kind*

I expect early m September to have a review of the fleet in the Sound.
Would it be possible, in addition, then to have a little of the practice with
the six-inch guns that you speak of? I know so little about it that I may be
making a suggestion that is wildly out of the way. Write me with absolute
frankness about it. Sincerely yours

3979 • to Robert bacon Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Oyster Bay, July 14, 1906

Repeat to the President of Mexico and to the President of Guatemala the
message we have received from Salvador. Urge Guatemala in the strongest
terms to accept, and point out the gravity of a refusal to close with our sug-
gestion in view of Salvador’s action. Get Mexico to send substantially the
same message and propose that the Mexican Minister and our Ministers to
Guatemala and Salvador be present at the meeting. 1

3980 • TO KNTJTE NELSON Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 21, 1906

My dear Senator Nelson * I have your letter of the 18th instant, with en-
closures, which I return herewith. My memory of that matter is just the
same as yours. I was in close touch with you throughout the time when
the bill establishing the Department of Commerce and Labor was before the
two houses. We both agreed that the House provision which created the
Bureau of Corporations was too limited and did not give the Commissioner
sufficient power. As a matter of fact you were the man upon whom I espe-
cially relied for securing the necessary increase of power, and if it had not
been for your action the Bureau of Corporations would have been a very
ineffective bureau indeed. At your suggestion I asked Attorney General
Knox to prepare the amendment in proper form He did so, and either by
my direction handed it to you, or else handed it to me and I handed it to
you. In any case, you introduced the amendment, which had been prepared
at my request by Attorney General Knox. My memory is the same as yours,
namely, that Senator Hanna was opposed to the amendment, he being one
of the conferees, while Senator Clay supported it, as did Congressmen Hep-

1 Guatemala and Salvador, near war, were persuaded by the joint action of the
United States and Mexico to settle their differences amicably at a Central American
conference aboard the USS. Marblehead on July 20, 1906. For brief accounts of
this mediation, which postponed hostilities in Central Amenca for at least several
months, see Hill, Roosevelt and the Caribbean , pp 176-180, Jessup, Root , I, 500-502.
The relevant documents are in Foreign Relations , 1906, pp. 834-866.

334

bum and Mann, who were the conferees on the part of the House. No one
of us had the slightest reason for supposing that under it such a decision as
that of Judge Humphrey was possible. Attorney General Knox has told me,
as he has told you, that he did not regard Judge Humphrey’s decision as
good law. If we can secure the passage by Congress of a law allowing the
Government the right of appeal in such cases, I am very confident that the
action of the courts in the future will be the reverse of what Judge Hum-
phrey had decided. As I understand it, Congress has already, by a declaratory
statute, made its purpose plain. But our recent experience in the District
Court of New York, which decided against us in our suit against certain
big corporation men for conspiracy, although we believe that the precedents
(including a case against labor men for conspiracy) are absolutely in our
favor, shows that there is urgent necessity for giving us (that is the Govern-
ment) the right of appeal.

I wish in the most emphatic way to bear testimony to the fact that your
action in connection with creating the Bureau of Corporations was consist-
ently in the direction of strengthening the hands of the Government in deal-
ing with these corporations, and of making effective the power of the bu-
reau; and you are entitled to all possible credit for the leadmg part you took
m securing the adoption of one of the most important pieces of constructive
legislation among all the important constructive legislation of the last few
years. Sincerely yours

3981 • to henry white Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 21, 1906

My dear White: Thanks for your interesting letter. I have no question that
your explanation as to Farley’s calling on you late is correct, I am particu-
larly pleased that you showed the courtesy you did to Ireland, 1 because the
only regrettable feature about this trouble with the idiot Storers has been
Ireland’s possibly having his feelings hurt.

I feel just as you do about Root’s going to South America. This was the
psychological moment for him to go, and though in a sense it may truthfully
be described, as it has been described, as a sentimental journey, it is one of
those journeys of sentiment which are of real importance. Bacon has done
excellently in his place. He has made good his appointment many times over,
and is a very fine fellow.

Of course your brother-in-law would be an ideal man for a secretary-
ship, and I have sent your letter on to Bacon, saying so. I do not know
whether there is any likelihood of a vacancy, and I do not know who the
other applicants are nor the geographical needs of the situation.

1 Archbishops Farley and Ireland had called on White in Rome, where the ambassa-
dor, since assuming office in 1905, had taken pains to establish and maintain cordial,

though unofficial, relations with the Vatican.

335

I was much pleased at the success of the recent conversion of the Italian
debt.

With warm regards to Mrs. White, believe me. Faithfully yours

3982 * to james eli watson Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 25, 1906

My dear Mr Watson : 1 I have yours of the 23 d. I will gladly write that
letter, but I think you should get Cannon and Sherman to join with you to
decide to whom I shall write it. It is entirely satisfactory to me to write
you, the man who, as Republican whip in the House, has rendered such valu-
able service, but I want to be sure that Cannon and Sherman feel that there is
no objection to it; and while of course the letter should be designed to help
you personally, it should also, and indeed primarily, be a letter for the whole
party. I wish you would ask the Speaker if it would not be better, probably,
to have me write the letter in response to a request from you rather than off
my own bat. You know how continuous the effort is to make it appear that
I am interfering and attempting to dictate, and I think we should make it
clear that in this matter I am not interfering, but acting m response to a
request by setting forth what you have accomplished. I believe I can write
you a letter that will do good. I shall submit it to you first before making it
public for all the strengthening that you and Cannon and Sherman can put
into it. Sincerely yours

3983 * TO JACOB HENRY SCHIFF Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 26, 1906

My dear Mr Schiff: I have your letter of the 25th instant, with enclosures
For your private information I may mention that in Ambassador Meyer’s
last letter, of July nth, he writes as follows

The Mimster of Foreign Affairs refuses definitely to discuss, even informally,
the Bielostok massacre, and claims that we have no more right to meddle m the
matter than they would have to take up the lynching of negroes with us The
English Ambassador told me that he had the same experience, and that Izvolsky, 1
besides refusing to discuss the Jewish question, appeared very much put out

I quite appreciate the horror which all people must feel at what has
gone on m Russia. My dear Mr Schiff, the same horror must be felt at what

1 James Eli Watson, Republican congressman from Indiana, 1895-1897, 1899-1909,
senator, 1916—1933 Watson’s political efficiency was the product of his unfailing
conviviality, unquestioning party regularity, and undiscerning conservatism. With
Cannon, he prompted Roosevelt to write the basic Republican campaign document
for 1906, a public letter appealing for the election or a Republican congress See
No 4013.

1 Count Alexander Izvolsky, “clever and ambitious,” had recently succeeded Lams-
dorff as Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs

336

has befallen the Armenian people in Turkey. To send warships to take away
the fugitives would strike me as a spectacular bit of folly. Warships are
singularly unfit for such a purpose. If the object was to take away the fugi-
tives and not to do something theatrical, the end could be far better achieved
by hiring ordinary steamers — that is, unless the number of fugitives was
very, very small.

It was a great pleasure to see your son the other day. Sincerely yours

July 27, 1906

P.S. Your letter of yesterday has just come. I shall inquire if such action
is feasible. It would only be feasible for, at the outside, a few score of peo-
ple. We have taken it in my time once in Chile, and under Gouverneur
Morris it was taken in France; 2 but it would be wholly impracticable to take
it if more than a few score people were to try to take advantage of the asy-
lum.

3984 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 27, 1906

My dear Mr Secretary: I have received your letters of July 24th and 25th in
reference to the employment of Chinese labor on the Isthmus; also the letter
of Mr. Pepperman 1 of July 25th with the accompanying copies of docu-
ments.

That canal must be dug and the first requisite is to have labor to dig it,
and I shall permit nothing to stand in the way of getting this labor save the
law of the land and the requirements of morality. The Attorney General’s
opinion shows that we are warranted in going into the contracts. I am not
sufficiently familiar w T ith the subject to judge by myself if the contracts are
proper. I conclude, however, that you and the Commission have carefully
examined them and find them to be proper. I do not mind at all that this first
contract, which is only for a relatively small number of Chinese, should not
be given as the result of competitive bids. It is an experimental act on our
part. We must find out whether we can dig this canal only by the aid of West
Indian negroes, or whether we can get northern Spaniards to work; or
whether we can get natives of the Central and South American mainland.
Finally, we must find out what we can do with the Chinese, and, if necessary,
what we can do with Japanese. I regard this contract as in the nature of an
experiment to see what can be done with the Chinese. To advertise now
means further delay. I therefore authorize you to close this contract. If
Shonts and Stevens feel that there should be further contracts entered into

“Gouverneur Morris during the French Revolution and Patrick Eagan during the
Chilean Revolution of 1891 had given asylum in the Amencan legation to political
enemies of the revolutionary regimes. Schiff had suggested that this be done for
the Russian Jews The suggestion bore no fruit

1 Pepperman was the acting chief of the canal’s office of administration.

337

for additional Chinese, let them submit the matter to us, together with a
statement as to how they are getting on in the matter of employing Spanish
and other labor. For such further contracts, I feel there should be advertise-
ments. Of course if you could get white labor, which seems of necessity in
this case to mean Spamsh labor, I should prefer it. 2 But the prime necessity is
to complete the canal as speedily as possible.

You will be pleased to know that I have had a very satisfactory corre-
spondence with Judge Lurton. 3 He is evidently as sound about the negro as
he is about foreign affairs, labor and corporations. Ever yours

3985 • TO WHITELAW REID RoOSSVelt MsS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 27, 1906

My dear Reid: In answer to your most interesting letter, I have little to say
except “ditto to ' Mr. Burke.” On every point you have done just exactly
what I would have liked to have you do. Your action in the tinned meat
matter 1 was admirable. You could not possibly have treated Bryan better or
more wisely, 2 and your excellent speech of introduction prevented the
possibility of his saying anything that would cause us embarrassment. I have
been particularly glad you have been able to show him so much courtesy.
In all probability he is the coming man on the Democratic side. For ten
years now he has been the man whom the Democratic masses really fol-
lowed. It is about time for the swing of the pendulum, and as Parker’s de-
feat made it evident that the Democratic party must be the Bryan party if
it come into power, it would probably be with Bryan at the head. I feel

2 Experiments with Chinese labor in Panama were short-lived. The commission, m
August 1906, invited bids for the delivery of 2500 Chmese laborers, but the opposi-
tion of American laborers and the people of the West Coast and of the Republic
of Panama, which had a Chinese exclusion law, forced the abandonment of the
project Spain, Italy and Greece proved to be the best sources of unskilled white
labor. See Mack, Land Divided , pp, 539-540.

3 Roosevelt was considering Horace Harmon Lurton, Confederate veteran, Cleveland
Democrat, United States circuit judge and friend of Taft, for the vacancy on the
Supreme Court This post went to Moody, but m 1909 Taft made Lurton a
Supreme Court Justice

1 Reid, in a communication which included a cablegram from Roosevelt, had as-
sured the British Grocers’ Federation that, under the new law, the United States
Government guaranteed “the fitness in all respects of tinned meats bearing the
government stamp ”

2 The Great Commoner, then in England, was enjoying a successful visit Reid saw

to it that he met British celebrities They and the audiences at Bryan’s speeches gave
him a warmer, more respectful reception than many of his Republican countrymen
had expected he would receive.

338

that his travels around the world have broadened him immensely, and that
for this among other reasons he would be a far less dangerous man now than
he would have been ten years ago. He is neither a big nor a strong man. On
the contrary he is shallow, but he is kindly and well-meaning, and singularly
free from rancor. He might be a very bad president; but not intentionally;
his temptation is that of a weak man who is something of a demagogue, and
therefore of necessity not always sincere. But he is so cheap that I think we
can beat him with Taft, Root or Cannon.

As for McBee, I think you did exactly right. I wish to Heaven there
were not so many Americans who want to consort with royalty on the other
side. McBee is a thoroughly good fellow. He took both the Pope and the
Kaiser very seriously, and was much impressed with his interviews with
both. In view of what he said to you on the educational bill, I am inclined to
think it is better that he should not see the King, at any rate by my personal
request, for I must be extremely careful not to seem to interfere in any
shape or way m such a matter. Try to soothe his feelings all you can, and
have prominent people to meet him if it is entirely convenient for you to do
so.

I fairly screamed over John Wesley Gaines’ lady friend who wished to
be presented to the King because she was descended from King Alfred the
Great, and had her “insignia” with her. By George, he is better than any
character in Dickens!

I am looking forward to meeting Alice now; I thank you again for all
you did for her, and for the way you did it.

With warm regards to Mrs. Reid, I am, Faithfully yours

3986 • TO EDGAR DEAN CRUMPACKER Roosevelt MsS.

Private Oyster Bay, July 30, 1906

My dear Mr. Crumpacker: That is a matter primarily for Congress. I can
only say as an onlooker that four-fifths of the Republicans, including four-
fifths of the leaders, inform me that it is absolute folly to think for one
moment that the next House, or this House, can revise the tariff. For the
next House to do it means of course that it will be done right on the eve of
the Presidential election. I felt throughout that the only time that the tariff
could with wisdom have been revised was in the months succeeding my
inauguration. I desired to have it revised then. If I had absolute power in
the premises — that is, if I were myself a majority of both Houses — I would
feel, as you do, that there should be a revision. But you and the other lead-
ers must settle among yourselves how feasible it is to bring about a revision
before the next Presidential election.

This letter is strictly private. Sincerely yours

339

3987 • TO WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 31, 1906

My dear White: Last evening I took down the copy of Stratagems and
Spoils 1 which you had sent Mrs. Roosevelt. They are all first-class charac-
ters, Barton and Wharton and Gregg being naturally those with whose type
I am best acquainted. It seems to me that out of this volume of yours I could
pretty nearly construct my political philosophy. You see clearly the rascal-
ity of Wharton and the damage that he does, and you loathe that coarse,
money-making type of scoundrel in high political office, you see what Bar-
ton, the railroad man, and Bolton, the railroad lawyer, do that is bad, and
the way they exercise influence, and you would fight against it, just as I
have fought agamst it, but nevertheless you do not lose your head and join
the multitude of creatures who want to put the Greggs in power, partly
from mere folly, partly from envy and hatred, partly from righteous indig-
nation with the Whartons and Bartons and Boltons. Of course, if these peo-
ple have their way and get the Greggs in, the result is sure to be a reaction,
the strength of which must necessarily give great power again to Wharton,
Barton and Bolton, but this is a thing that they never can be made to under-
stand. Steffens, Hapgood & Co. never understand it, incidentally.

This letter is partly due to my having been utterly disgusted with some
of Bryan’s recent utterances. He is a kindly, well-meaning, emotional man,
and I think he has been very much benefited by his two years’ trip around
the world. But he has altogether too many of the traits of Gregg in him. He
is a demagogue, and when convinced that the people demand a certain kind
of action, or rather a certain kind of talk, he will give them this talk, just as
Gregg sent the telegram about the Homestead strike. Bryan would never
in the world have accomplished as much against the big corporation man
who has done evil as I have accomplished, nor do I believe that he would
have accomplished as much in the regulation of corporations. But he will
talk with just a hundredfold the violence. It is perfectly characteristic of
these big corporation men, however, that they should mind me a great deal
more than they mind Bryan. They never objected at all to what I have said
What they object to is that I have done what I said.

Of course in any movement it is impossible to avoid havmg some people
go with you temporarily whose reasons are different from yours and may be
very bad indeed. Thus in the beef packing business I found that Sinclair was
of real use. I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced,
and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods.
For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth. Nevertheless, in
this particular crisis he was of service to us, and yet I had to explain again

1 White in his memoirs wrote of Roosevelt’s opinion of Stratagems and. Spoils (1901)

“He told me . . that he thought it was my very best book It was not ” — White,

Autobiography , p. 320

340

and again to well-meaning people that I could not afford to disregard ugly
things that had been found out simply because I did not like the man who
had helped in finding them out. So it was with the rate bill. At the end
Aldrich and his people really threw up their hands, and in consideration of
the adoption of an entirely proper amendment, supported the bill. There-
upon the La Follettes, Tillmans, Baileys, and so forth, expressed grave doubts
about the bill on the idiotic ground that no matter how proper an amend-
ment was, if Aldrich supported it nobody else could afford to do so. La
Follette impressed me as a shifty self-seeker. He is in favor of some excel-
lent things, but his usefulness last winter was very much limited because
his real motives seemed to be not to get something good and efficient done,
but to make a personal reputation for himself by screaming for something
he knew perfectly well could not be had. I have very little more patience
with the man who will sacrifice the public good in order to get an increase
of personal reputation, than with the man who sacrifices the public good for
his own material interest.

Give my regards to the family. Faithfully yours

3988 • TO ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 1, 1906

My dear President Hadley: It is a great comfort to have, among the two or
three leading college presidents, one who can always be relied upon to say
what is wise and sane as well as fearless. I thank you for your admirable arti-
cle on the growth of luxury in the American college, 1 and I wish that the
foolish people who desire to abolish football and minimize athletics would
pay heed to what you show to be one of the best reasons for their main-
tenance. Faithfully yours

3989 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August z, 1906

Dear Will : I agree absolutely with you as to Ide’s suggestion. Let Smith be
inaugurated and become Governor General in title and in fact, and protect
Ide’s rights as you suggest. 1

Now, you beloved individual, as for your long letter I enjoyed it thor-
oughly. One element in my enjoyment was, as it always is with you, my
unchristian delight in finding that you, whom I admire as much not only as
any public man of the present but as any public man of the past, bar Lincoln
and Washington — indeed, whom I suppose I admire more than any other
public man, bar these two — get into just the same kind of hot water from

1 Arthur T. Hadley, “Wealth and Democracy in American Colleges,” Harper’s

Monthly , 1 13.450-453 (August 1906).

1 Ide’s resignation as Governor General of the Philippines was about to take effect.

341

time to time that I get into myself. The water is not as hot, and you never
deserve to have gotten into it, as I am sorry to say I abundantly do; but it
is a comfort to feel that the man I love and admire and respect encounters the
difficulties that I encounter, and it makes me feel that perhaps in my gloom-
ier moments I exaggerate my culpability and the blame with which I shall be
visited, when I see that not only do you ludicrously exaggerate the weight of
the attack that will be made upon you, but ascribe to yourself a culpability
that is wholly nonexistent. Of course you will be attacked, and violently
attacked, both on Panama matters and about the Philippine matters, espe-
cially the railroads. It is entirely possible that by taking advantage of the
misstatements of scoundrels they may here and there make a point against-
you which will cause a few days’ uneasiness to good people until the answer
comes out. But although this is possible, I do not think it probable; and fur-
ther than this their malice and mendacity will accomplish nothing. There is
not the slightest reason why you should not have consulted Cromwell. I
think you were entirely right to do it, and if it were to be done over again
I should advise you to do just exactly as you have done. Each man must
play the game his own way, and he cannot get the benefit of playing it that
way without suffering from the defects of his qualities. You and I play the
game very much alike. If we attempted to be excessively discreet and rather
furtive and mysterious, and to keep everybody in the dark as to what we
were doing, we should save ourselves from an occasional scrape which we
now get into; but it would be at the cost of sacrificing a large part of our
efficiency. When it is really necessary to keep a secret, you and I keep it
absolutely, as we kept the secret of the Algeciras negotiations with Ger-
many, for instance. But normally we can do best by working perfectly
openly, talking with all kinds of people, getting advice from all kinds of
people, on the whole the country profits by this openness and advice, but
not realizing that as an incident we must pay the penalty of an occasional
fool repeating in incorrect form what we have said to him, and of an occa-
sional knave professing to have dark suspicions as to our relations with some
of the men who discussed the matters with us. Just at this moment, for ex-
ample, I am having an annoying time over that idiot Bishop Gabriels’ having
given to the press, not maliciously but in foolish and sloppy-minded good
faith, an utterly inaccurate statement as to a perfunctory message of good
will to the Pope which at his request I gave him . 2 It is annoying, and so far
as it attracts attention at all my enemies will believe that Bishop Gabriels is
telling the exact truth, and my friends will shake their heads over this fresh
example of my indiscretion. As a matter of fact it simply means that I can-
not have what are, on the whole, beneficial relations of free intercourse with

a Bishop Henry Gabriels of Ogdensburg, New York, had requested Roosevelt, in a
private interview, to send through him a general message of good will to the Pope
This the President did. Gabriels, however, in a statement to the press, misquoted
the President, implying, among other things, that Roosevelt believed he had a claim
to special recognition for his appointment of Catholics to public office.

342

ecclesiastics as well as politicians and not suffer from the words of an occa-
sional fool. But perhaps I am to be blamed somewhat in this case, whereas
you are not to be blamed in the least for one single thing which you have
enumerated as to which you may possibly be attacked concerning Panama
or the Philippines. You have done just exactly what it was imperatively
necessary should be done. You have done it in the wisest and most efficient
way. You will be attacked of course. I do not believe the attacks will have
the slightest effect. If they do, the only emotion that they will arouse in
me is a hearty contempt for those whom they do affect.

Personally I am sincerely glad that you have decided to stay in the Cabi-
net for the time being, and your motives are, as always, those which make
it a real delight to work with you. While I do not wish definitely to com-
mit myself, my belief is that I shall appoint Lurtqn. I know that he is right
about labor, right about trusts, right about our foreign policy, and that he
is a man of national instincts. I purposely sent him Fleming’s address on the
negro, 3 to find out if he is right about the negro too, and he is.

With love to Mrs. Taft, Ever yours

3990 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 6, 1906

My dear Bonaparte: I think Converse’s plan is all right. Have the supply ship,
etc., in fine. 1

I agree with you that there seem to be too many collisions in Evans’ fleet. 2
When there was that collision in New York Harbor it was owing to what I
regard as Evans’ mistake in taking the ships out in intricate and dangerous
navigation m too close order. There certainly should be more space between
ships in a fog, and more space where the navigation is intricate and danger-
ous. Evans should grasp the idea that the training should be such as to enable
people to take risks, and yet that the risks should not unnecessarily be taken.
When I used to hunt I practiced my hunters over big jumps; but it was
only in the actual hunting field, and when it seemed to me worth while,
that I deliberately ran the risk of heavy falls. But Evans is a first-class man.

Will you give me the official reports of the feat of Commander Peters, of
the New Jersey Naval Militia, in taking the Portsmouth full-rigged into
New York Harbor without any outside assistance? I am much impressed by
the newspaper accounts of the incident. Sincerely yours

3 For this speech by William Henry Fleming, Georgia Democrat, congressman, 1897-

1903, see Independent , 61 290-291 (August 2, 1906).

1 Plans were then being made for Roosevelt to review the fleet at Oyster Bay on

September 3. The President had requested this review to popularize his naval pro-
gram and demonstrate its progress.

s Robley D. Evans was at this time commander in chief of the Adantic Fleet.

343

J 99 1 ‘ TO LYMAN ABBOTT

Personal

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, August 6, 1906

My dear Dr. Abbott: I have your letter of the 4th instant. It would not be
possible for me to give you any definite answer about that until nearer the
end of the term of my office, though, as you know, my belief is that the
answer will be favorable. 1 I shall get you to come down here sometime in
September, when I shall be taking up my message and will be facing the
winter’s work. My idea in my message is, among other things, to insist upon
the present Congress finishing its work by passing the bill forbidding corpo-
rations to contribute, and the Philippine tariff bill, and then bringing for-
ward my progressive inheritance and income tax, not as something immedi-
ate, but as something for which the way must be prepared for future action.
Always yours

3992 • TO WILLIAM WOODVILLE ROCKHILL Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 6 , 1906

My dear Mr. Rockhtll: The three centers of special world interest for the
immediate future bid fair to be Russia, the Balkan Provinces, and China. It
is therefore especially necessary that our representatives m those three places
should try to keep in close touch with the Associated Press representatives.

I need not tell you that this does not mean that under any conceivable
circumstances they are to tell to the Associated Press or to any other news-
paper representatives anything that should not be told; and if for any reason
any of our representatives is discontented with or has reason to distrust any
representative of the Associated Press, let him tell me, or better still, write
direct to Mr Melville E. Stone. In your case, for instance, if you have reason
to distrust the representative of the Associated Press in Peking, if you write
to Mr. Stone you can be sure that a man of satisfactory character will be
put there; but I do wish that you should be in close touch with the repre-
sentative of the Associated Press. Mr. Stone feels that the London Times has
been given information by you, very possibly half-consciously, which has
put the Associated Press of the United States at a disadvantage. Now, I am
personally very anxious that our people should not be dependent for their
information upon what comes from London any more than upon what
comes from Paris, Berlin or St. Petersburg. As long as the Associated Press
behaves properly I feel that it is entitled to our backing; and I shall ask you,
if the present representative of the Associated Press in Peking is all right, to
be careful hereafter that he gets at least all the information that you are

1 Abbott had, apparently, already suggested that Roosevelt at the expiration of his

term join the staff of the Outlook.

344

willing to give to any press representatives at all; and that if for any reason
he is not satisfactory, you communicate at once with Mr. Stone.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. RockhilL

You are in the storm center, but it must be very interesting work. Sin-
ce! ely yours

3993 • to Andrew carnegie Roosevelt Mss .

Personal and private Oyster Bay, August 6, 1906

My dear Mr. Carnegie: Your letter is most interesting. Do you know, I some-
times wish that we did not have the ironclad custom which forbids a Presi-
dent ever to go abroad. If I could meet the Kaiser and the responsible au-
thorities of France and England, I think I could be of help in this Hague
Conference business, which is now utterly impossible, and as facts are un-
advisable. In any such matter the violent extremists who favor the matter
are to be dreaded almost or quite as much as the Bourbon reactionaries who
are against it. This is as true of the cause of international peace as it is of the
cause of economic equity as between labor and capital at home. I do not
know whether in the French Revolution I have most contempt and abhor-
rence for the Marat, Hebert, Robespierre and Danton type of revolutionists,
or for the aristocratic, bureaucratic and despotic rulers of the old regime; for
the former did no good in the revolution, but at the best simply nullified the
good that others did and produced a reaction which re-enthroned despotism;
while they made the name of liberty a word of shuddering horror for the
time being.

I hope to see real progress made at the next Hague Conference. If it is
possible in some way to bring about a stop, complete or partial, to the race
in adding to armaments, I shall be glad, but I do not yet see my way clear
as regards the details of such a plan. We must always remember that it would
be a fatal thing for the great free peoples to reduce themselves to impotence
and leave the despotisms and barbarisms armed. It would be safe to do so if
there was some system of international police, but there is now no such sys-
tem, if there were, Turkey for instance would be abolished forthwith unless
it showed itself capable of working real reform. As things are now it is for
the advantage of peace and order that Russia should be in Turkestan, that
France should have Algiers, and that England should have Egypt and the
Sudan. It would be an advantage to justice if we were able in some way
effectively to interfere in the Congo Free State to secure a more righteous
government; if we were able effectively to interfere for the Armenians in
Turkey, and for the Jews in Russia. But at present I do not see how we can
interfere in any of these three matters, and the one thing I won’t do is to
bluff when I cannot make good; to bluster and threaten and then fail to take
the action if my words need to be backed up.

345

I have always felt that our special peace champions in the United States
were guilty of criminal folly in their failure to give me effective support in
my contest with the Senate over the arbitration treaties. In this contest I had
the support of certain Senators, headed by the very best man in the Senate —
O. H. Platt of Connecticut. But the Senate, which has undoubtedly shown
itself at certain points not merely an inefficient but often a dangerous body
as regards its dealings with foreign affairs, so amended the treaties as to
make them absolutely worthless. Yet there were some people — including,
for instance, a man named Love 1 or Dove, who is the head of the peace con-
ference that meets at Lake Mohonk — who in their anxiety to get anything,
no matter how great a sham, and in their ignorance of the fact that foreign
powers would undoubtedly have refused to ratify the amended treaties, de-
clined entirely to give me any support and thereby committed a very serious
wrong against the cause of arbitration.

You have doubtless seen how well the Pan-American Conference has
gone off. Root’s going there was a great stroke. Gradually we are coming to
a condition which will insure permanent peace in the Western Hemisphere.
If only the Senate will ratify the Santo Domingo treaty, we shall have taken
another stride in this direction. At The Hague I hope we can work hand in
hand with France and England, but all three nations must be extremely care-
ful not to get led off into vagaries, and not to acquiesce in some propositions
such as those I am sorry to say Russia has more than once made in the past
— propositions in the name of peace which were really designed to favor
military despotisms at the expense of their free neighbors. I believe in peace,
but I believe that as things are at present, the cause not only of peace but of
what is greater than peace, justice, is favored by having those nations which
really stand at the head of civilization show, not merely by words but by
action, that they ask peace in the name of justice and not from any weakness.
With warm regards to Mrs. Carnegie, believe me, Faithfully yours

3994 • to henry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 6, 1906

Dear Cabot: I have sent your and Gussie’s letters to Bacon, asking that the
action Gussie requests be taken unless there is good reason to the contrary of
which I am not informed.

I have been having a real rest this summer, and incidentally have grown
to realize that I have reached that time of lif e when too violent physical exer-
cise does not rest a man when he has had an exhausting mental career. Ros-
well has behaved excellently ever since that one day when he reared so badly,
and I think he will be all right in the end.

1 Alfred Henry Love, Philadelphia merchant, Quaker, uncompromising, often naive,
pacifist, vocal opponent of the Civil and Spanish-American wars, long-time president
of the Universal Peace Society,

346

Have you read the Life of Hamilton by that Englishman, Oliver? 1 I
like it.

I shall do what I can to help out the Congressional Committee this fall,
but there are mighty ugly propositions to be faced in several different States.
The Republicans of Ohio, for instance, want to down both Dick and For-
aker, just as the Republicans of Pennsylvania want to down Penrose, while
Platt and Odell between them have absolutely deviled the situation here in
New York. Their alliance has broken down, though. Hearst in New York
has completely run away with the Democracy. It may be that he will be
elected, if so I think he will prove a thorn in Bryan’s side. As for Bryan,
though he has many kindly and amiable traits, what a shallow demagogue
he is 1 I do not believe he is a bit worse than Thomas Jefferson, and I do not
think that if elected President he will be a worse President. The country
would survive, but it would suffer just as the country suffered for at least
two generations because of its folly in following Jefferson’s lead.

We have been having a delightful summer. The secret-service men are
a very small but very necessary thorn in the flesh. Of course they would
not be in the least use in preventing any assault upon my life. I do not be-
lieve there is any danger of such an assault, and if there were it would be
simple nonsense to try to prevent it, for as Lincoln said, though it would be
safer for a President to live in a cage, it would interfere with his business.
But it is only the secret-service men who render life endurable, as you would
realize if you saw the procession of carriages that pass through the place, the
procession of people on foot who try to get into the place, not to speak of
the multitude of cranks and others who are stopped in the village. I have
ridden and rowed and chopped and played tennis. We are about to have an
evening picnic in the boats. I always especially welcome anything in the
boats, because it gives me a chance to row Edith, so I get some exercise with-
out having her tired out.

Archie is off for a week’s cruise with Captain Joshua Slocum — that man
who takes his little boat, without any crew but himself, all around the world.
Give my love to Nannie. Ever yours

3995 • to william henry moody Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 7, 1906

My dear Moody: I have extended the time of the Spanish Treaty Claims
Commission to January 1, 1907, by which date their work is to be wound
up.

1 Frederick Scott Oliver, British publicist and politician whose views on public
policy were close to those of Roosevelt, had written his Alexander Hamilton ; an
Essay on American Union (London, 1906) both to extol the Hamiltonian system
and to suggest constitutional federation as a solution for the current governmental
problems of South Africa. The volume was more influential as a tract for Oliver’s
plans for Africa than it was useful as an interpretation of Hamilton.

347

I return Senator Fulton’s letter. Is it not worth while to have Bristol come
on for a conference 5 While there should be no hesitation in indicting Fulton
if the facts justify it, we should be exceedingly careful not to indict him un-
less there is a reasonable chance of a conviction. We must not appear m the
attitude of persecuting him. If you do not think it advisable for Bristol to
come on, would it be proper to have him put all the facts before you prior
to action^ Would it not be better to see him and warn him m the most em-
phatic way that under the peculiar circumstances of his appointment, and
the objections raised to his appointment, which have resulted in a failure
hitherto to confirm him, he must on the one hand not fail to proceed against
Fulton if the case is clear, and on the other hand, scrupulously avoid any
action which will look like persecution. My personal impression about Fulton
is very unfavorable and I should not be surprised to see him caught in any-
thing; but we must go on evidence and not personal impressions. 1 Sin-
cerely yours

[Handwritten] I do wish I could see you.

3996 • to whitela'w REID Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 7, 1906

My dear Reid: I have received your letter of July 27th. I am glad that the
British Government seems likely to take the same ground that we do in the
Hague Conference 1 1 enclose you copy of a letter to Carnegie. As he speaks
very freely to Grey, I think it just as well for you to see this letter and to
tell Grey you have seen it. I do not want this new Liberal Government, with
which in many matters I have such hearty sympathies, to go to any maudlin
extreme at the Hague Conference. It is eminently wise and proper that we
should take real steps in advance toward the policy of minimizing the
chances of war among civilized peoples, of multiplying the methods and
chances of honorably avoiding war in the event of controversy, but we
must not grow sentimental and commit some Jefferson-Bryan-like piece of
idiotic folly such as would be entailed if the free peoples that have free gov-
ernments put themselves at a hopeless disadvantage compared with military
despotisms and military barbarians. I should like to see the British navy kept

1 Senator Fulton had consistently opposed the nomination of William C. Bristol for
United States District Attorney for Oregon. Nevertheless, Bnstol was confirmed
m 1906. Not until the trial, in 1908, of his predecessor, John Hall, was Fulton’s place
in the history of the Oregon land frauds clearly established. In the testimony given
at the trial it was revealed that the senator had used bribery to obtain political
advantage and had arranged illegal land entries through the Butte Creek Land, Live-
stock, and Lumber Company Because of the statute of limitations, however, Fulton
could not be indicted.

1 Reid had reported that Sir Edward Grey supported Root’s proposal for the limi-
tation of naval armaments but preferred that the United States present the proposal
to the Hague Conference. For the detailed opinions of British and American states-
men on this subject, see Jessup, Root, II, 70--73; Cortissoz, Reid , II, 342-343.

348

at its present size, but only on condition that the Continental and Japanese
navies are not built up. I do not wish to see it relatively weaker to them than
is now the case. As regards our own navy, I think in number of units it is
now as large as it need be, and I should advocate merely the substitution of
efficient for inefficient units. This would mean allowing for about one new
battleship a year, and of course now and then for a cruiser, collier, or a few
torpedo-boat destroyers.

I think it is just as well that the King did not talk too freely with you
about Algeciras before he saw the Kaiser. Let me repeat that as regards
Bryan, John Sharp Williams & Co., you did exactly what you ought to have
done. Burton of Ohio is a very good fellow and is really in many ways a
very useful Congressman; nevertheless, in view of his opposition to the navy
I doubt if his usefulness counter-balances this one great shortcoming on his
part. Williams is the true old-style Jeffersonian of the barbaric blatherskite
variety — much such a man as Jefferson’s tool, Giles, was in the Second and
Third Congresses. He was educated abroad. He is financially, I do not doubt,
an honest man. He is an untruthful blackguard in his public attitude toward
all public men who are employed in doing valuable work, he is a barbarian
in his local State «policies» and he is against the navy and the army and in
favor of international peace primarily because he cares nothing for the honor,
dignity or interest of the United States, but merely for his own success, and,
in a subordinate way, for the parochial interests of Mississippi. I have been
scrupulously careful to give him recognition as the minority leader of the
House at the White House, and it would have been a misfortune if you had
failed to do the same thing at the Embassy.

Do you know the Englishman, Oliver, who has written such a capital
life of H amilton?

With regards from Mrs. Roosevelt to both Mrs. Reid and yourself, be-
lieve me, Sincerely yours

3997 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE RoOSCVelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, August 9, 1906

Dear Cabot: I am more hopeful than I was on the Congressional situation,
though I would not like to bet on it. I shall convulse the goo-goos and mug-
wumps with horror by taking the chance to write a letter making as strong
a plea as I know how for the election of a Republican Congress. It will be
done, of course, on the most excellent nonpartisan grounds. I am glad that
the idiot revision feeling is dying out in Massachusetts. It is not dying out in
certain regions in the West, however, probably having arisen somewhat later
m that section. In my letter I expect to say on the tariff simply that we believe
in protection, but of course hold ourselves at liberty to revise any particular
schedule when it is shown that that schedule is wrong and it is possible to
revise it without interfering with other schedules, and that we will undertake

349

a general revision of the tariff whenever it becomes evident to the American
people as a whole that the damage thereby done will be offset by the advan-
tage gained. This or some kindred form of expression is, I think, preferable
to the mere naked standpat declaration which Cannon and the leaders of the
lower House seem to prefer.

I agree with you entirely as to the labor business. The labor people are
utterly unreasonable. Taft will take part in Littlefield’s campaign, I am happy
to say. We have got to do everything to help him. 1 Unfortunately, Little-
field, like McCall, although not to the same extent, has thought to gain repu-
tation by posing as an independent, and antagonistic, when he chose, to the
majority in Congress, the President and everyone else. He will now undoubt-
edly suffer because of this fool attitude. Moran 2 seems to me a less able Benja-
min Butler. Poor Guild! He is a good public servant and a good fellow, but
he certainly possesses the knack of setting people by the ears.

Yesterday we took a picnic, about twenty of the various households row-
ing and sailing to the end of Lloyd’s Neck, some five miles off, where we
took dinner, and afterwards came home by starlight. Kermit and I rowed
Edith. In pushing off after dinner there was quite a heavy surf, and one boat
upset — fortunately only with boys in it, so that it was merely a huge addi-
tion to their delight and to the delight of all the rest.

With love to Nannie, Ever yours

P.S. I have asked the Putnams to send you a copy of the Life of Hamilton
by Oliver.

3998 * TO FREDERICK SCOTT OLIVER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 9, 1906

My dear Mr. Oliver: I have so thoroughly enjoyed your book on Hamilton
that you must allow me the privilege of writing to tell you so. I have just
sent a copy to Lodge. There are naturally one or two points on which you
and I would not quite agree; but they are very few, and it is really remark-
able that you, an English man of letters, and I, an American politician largely

1 The A.F. of L. was opposing the re-election of Littlefield, who had consistently
voted against labor measures. “As conducted by labor,” Gompers later recalled, “the
campaign was entirely educational. We gave the voters of Maine the facts about Mr.
Littlefield and his record. . . . Nothing else was necessary.” Roosevelt disapproved
both of this threat to a Republican and of the precedent of political action by labor
Taft, Beveridge, Lodge, Cannon, and Watson, with the President’s hearty support,
spoke in Mame in Littlefield’s behalf. Aided also by the N.A.M., Littlefield kept
his seat, but by a greatly reduced margin. For labor’s view on the campaign, see
Gompers, Seventy Years, II, 244-246.

2 John B. Moran, in 1906 the Democratic candidate for Governor of Massachusetts,
was considered by conservatives in both parties to be, like Hearst, a dangerous man
To Moran’s campaign Thomas W. Lawson contributed his literary talent, but, at
the request of the candidate, little of his money. Moran lost by a substantial margin
to Curtis Guild, Jr.

350

of non-English descent, should be in such entire accord as regards the essen-
tials. I shall inflict upon you a rather cruel punishment for having written
the book; for I am sending you a volume of mine. As it deals with New
York City most of it will be of no interest whatever to you; but it is possible
that pages 104 to 158, in which I touch on some of the very questions you
deal with, both as regards the Revolutionary War, the adoption of the Con-
stitution, and Hamilton himself, will appeal to you, because it seems to me
that the ideas are substantially like those which you develop.

Thank Heaven, I have never hesitated to criticize Jefferson; he was infi-
nitely below Hamilton; I think the worship of Jefferson a discredit to my
country; and I have as small use for the ordinary Jeffersonian as for the ordi-
nary defender of the house of Stuart — and I am delighted to notice that you
share this last prejudice with me. I think Jefferson on the whole did harm in
public life. At the same time, there are two .... Jefferson stood at . . .
advantage compared to his Federalist opponents (always excepting Wash-
ington) . He did thoroughly believe in the people, just as Abraham Lincoln
did, just as Chatham and Pitt believed in England, and though this did not
blind Lincoln to popular faults and failings any more than it blinded the
elder and the younger Pitts to English failings, it was in each case a prerequi-
site to doing the work well. In the second place, Jefferson believed in the
West and in the expansion of our people westward, whereas the northeastern
Federalists allowed themselves to get into a position of utter hostility to west-
ern expansion. Finally, Jefferson was a politician and Hamilton was not.
Hamilton’s admirers are apt to speak as if this was really to his credit, but
such a position is all nonsense. A politician may be and often is a very base
creature, and if he cares only for party success, if he panders to what is evil
in the people, and still more if he cares only for his own success, his special
abilities merely render him a curse. But among free peoples, and especially
among the free peoples who speak English, it is only in very exceptional
circumstances that a statesman can be efficient, can be of use to the country,
unless he is also (not as a substitute, but m addition) a politician. This is a
very rough-and-tumble, workaday world, and the persons, such as our “anti-
imperialist” critics over here, who sit in comfortable libraries and construct
theories, or even the people who like to do splendid and spectacular feats in
public office without undergoing all the necessary preliminary outside drudg-
ery, are and deserve to be at a disadvantage compared to the man who takes
the trouble, who takes the pains, to organize victory. Lincoln — who, as you
finely put it, unconsciously carried out the Hamiltonian tradition — was su-
perior to Hamilton just because he was a politician and was a genuine demo-
crat and therefore suited to lead a genuine democracy. He was infinitely
superior to Jefferson of course, for Jefferson led the people wrong, and fol-
lowed them when they went wrong; and though he had plenty of imagina-
tion and of sentimental aspiration, he had neither courage nor farsighted
common sense, where the interests of the nation were at stake.

35i

I have not much sympathy with Hamilton’s distrust of the democracy
Nobody knows better than I that a democracy may go very wrong indeed,
and I loathe the kind of demagogy which finds expression m such statements
as “the voice of the people is the voice of God”, but in my own experience
it has certainly been true, and if I read history aright it was true both before
and at the time of the Civil War, that the highly cultivated classes, who tend
to become either cynically worldly-wise or to develop along the lines of the
Eighteenth Century philosophers, and the moneyed classes, especially those
of large fortune, whose ideal tends to be mere money, are not fitted for any
predominant guidance in a really great nation. I do not dislike, but I cer-
tainly have no especial respect or admiration for and no trust m, the typical
big moneyed men of my country. I do not regard them as furnishing sound
opinion as regards either foreign or domestic policies. Quite as little do I
regard as furnishing such opinion the men who especially pride themselves
on their cultivation — the men like many of those who graduate from my
own college of Harvard, and who find their organs in the New York Eve-
ning Post and Nation . These papers are written especially for cultivated gen-
tlefolk. They have many minor virtues, moral and intellectual, and yet dur-
ing my twenty-five years m public life I have found them much more often
wrong than right on the great and vital public issues. In England they would
be howling little Englanders, would be raving against the expense of the
navy, and eager to find out something to criticize in Lord Cromer’s manage-
ment of Egypt, not to speak of perpetually insisting upon abandoning the
Sudan. Sumner, whose life of Hamilton you quote, is an exact representative
of this type. He is a college professor, a cold-blooded creature of a good
deal of intellect, but lacking the fighting virtues and all wide patriotism, who
has an idea that he can teach statesmen and politicians their duty. Three times
out of four he goes as wrong on public questions as any Tammany alderman
possibly could go, and he would be quite unable even to understand the lofty
ambition which, for instance, makes you desire to treat the tariff as some-
thing neither good nor bad in itself, but to be handled in whatever way best
contributes to solidifying the British Empire and making it a compact and
coherent union.

You speak of your lack of direct familiarity with American politics. Do
come over to this side next winter and spend a night or two with me at the
White House. I shall have Lodge and various others in to see you, and I
think you would enjoy meeting them. By the way, I shall, under those cir-
cumstances, try to have you meet one of Hamilton’s many descendants, Miss
Louisa Lee Schuyler of whom I am very fond; she is a dear, — almost an
elderly lady now; whenever she comes to dine at the White House she wears
a brooch with Hamilton’s hair. I shall also have you meet my Commissioner
of Corporations, Garfield, — his father, the President, w r as the first of our
Presidents who publicly put Hamilton in the high place where he belongs

35 2

By the way, the inkstand I am using was given me by the Hamilton Club of
Chicago when I was inaugurated Governor of New York.

With regard, Sincerely yours

3999 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 10, 1906

My dear Bonaparte: That is a first-class list of vessels. Would you mind find-
ing out from Admiral Evans what hour would be best for review? Tell him
that I would like to have the captains of all the ships come on board for a
lunch. As there are so many it will have to be a stand-up lunch. Either have
the lunch before or after the review, as Admiral Evans thinks best.

Ask Admiral Dewey if he won’t be present on the Mayflower; and I
think that the naval attaches had better go on the Mayflower also. Please ask
the State Department to send invitations to the attaches. As for you and
Newberry, do just as you see fit, but if you decide to stay on the Dolphin,
at least come on the Mayflower for lunch, with your party. Faithfully yours
P.S. I do not for a moment anticipate that there will be any trouble with
the Japanese over this killing of the seal poachers, but I feel that the navy
should have possible contingencies clearly in view. 1 I think that the General
Board should be ready with advice to give as to what we should do with our
ships on the Asiatic Station if trouble should come with Japan. There are
two battleships, a monitor, five torpedo boats and nine unarmored cruisers.
They would be helpless to resist a Japanese attack, and yet their loss would
be serious. My own inclination would be to get them right out of Asiatic
waters and have them join the rest of our forces in the Atlantic waters as
speedily as possible, or else having them join these same Atlantic forces
somewhere near San Francisco as speedily as possible. I would like the views
of the General Board on this.

P.S. No. 2 . 1 think the enclosed suggestion concerning Commodore Van-
derbilt a good one, and I would also like to have Commodore E. C. Benedict
of the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club invited to be present. Have both
Commodores asked to lunch on the Mayflower . I do not think it necessary to
ask any of the other officers of the yacht clubs to lunch.

4000 • TO JOHN ALBERT SLEICHER Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 1 1, 1906

My dear Mr. Sleicher: Many thanks for your letter of the 9th instant. You
are a politician and you know that Congress has got to get so that it will and

1 American authorities on St. Paul Island, on July 16 and 17, 1906, killed or wounded
a number of Japanese poachers on the seal rookeries. Since the Japanese government,
understanding the need to protect the seal herds, was sympathetic with the purpose
behind the American action, the episode caused no international difficulties. For a full
treatment of the incident, see Bailey, Roosevelt and the J apanese-Amencan Crises ,
pp. 24-26.

353

can act on the tariff before any action on my part would do more than split
the Republican party wide open. If I were the legislative as well as the execu-
tive I would revise the tariff right away, although I am not at all sure that at
least half of those who are loudest to demand revision would be satisfied with
the revision I would give. But at present I doubt whether it would be pos-
sible to get the tariff revised prior to the next Presidential election. I then
hope that the man whom the Republicans nominate in my place will be
nominated on a platform which shall promise immediate action in the direc-
tion of a revision. And now, my dear fellow, remember that I am under no
circumstances to be that man. If this were my first term I should certainly
count upon taking up a revision of the tariff as one of the things that I
would have to do in my second term. As it is, it must be taken up by the
man who succeeds me.

I do not think that the Herald possesses the slightest weight one way or
the other.

It was a pleasure to have you out here the other day. Sincerely yours

4001 • TO WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE Roosevelt Ms$.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 1 1, 1906

My dear White: I have your letter of the 8th. Personally I wish very much
that you would write exactly that article. For me to say what I think, which
is that it is an insult to the people to suppose that we have not got men who
can carry on my work, might look a little like what our southern friends
call “biggity.” You have exactly expressed my ideas. Of course I am not go-
ing to try to nominate any man. Personally you know how highly I think of
Secretary Taft, but I am not going to take a hand in his nomination, for it is
none of my business. I am sure Kansas will like him. He would be an ideal
President. He is the kind of broad-gauge American that Kansas ought to like
But I do not believe that for any consideration he would consent to be
“mighty keerful”! It is not his style. I think he and Kansas speak the same
language — the American language — the language which perhaps is spoken
best in some districts of the West, but which is familiar to all good Ameri-
cans in every part of our country.

No, don’t send me any more of those Leavenworth Times articles. I am
delighted to have you send anything to me that you think worth while that
attacks me, but it makes me red-hot to see how people persecute Wood. I
enclose Taft’s letter on the subject.

Get on to see me at Washington in October. Faithfully yours

354

400 2 • TO ROBERT BRIDGES

Personal

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, August 14, 1906

My dear Bridges: I find Ted objects very strongly to having his name signed
to that poem, and I shall ask you to have it signed as I originally intended,
that is, “Jacob Van Vechten.” 1 I am happy to say that he, like my other
children, has grown to have a perfect horror of seeming to pose in the news-
papers, and he is convinced that if his name were published there would be
a chance for a little unpleasant notoriety, and for the assertion that he only
got his poem published because he was my son; that he was seeking news-
paper advertisement, and so forth, and so forth. Ted thinks the effect might
be bad upon him in college; and much to my amusement, he also said that if
he was to go into railroading, as he hoped, it might have a bad effect upon
people who would employ him if they found that he was writing poetry!
So I shall ask you not to publish his name.

It was awfully nice to see you yesterday. Faithfully yours
P.S. I send you herewith a letter from Baron Tauchnitz, of Leipzig. I
gave him permission to use one of my books, and he has selected Outdoor
Pastimes . If you approve will you communicate with him in the matter?
The amount named is perfectly satisfactory to me.

4003 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 14, 1906

Dear Will. Pray express to Senator Millard my heartbroken grief, &c., &c.,
&c. Nevertheless, the trip shall not be abandoned! 1 1 return his letter.

I had a most interesting talk with Shonts yesterday, and also with Bishop.
As regards much of the talk, I shall wish to discuss it in person and not by
letter. I think Stevens and Shonts are unjust to Magoon, 2 but it is evidently
wise that he should go to the Philippines. I am inclined to think it best, if
you deem it wise, that Shonts should himself appoint the administrator in-
stead of combining the latter’s functions with those of Gorgas; but I believe
that Sands should be appointed Minister in spite of the opposition of Shonts
and Stevens. 3 The last two are, I believe, the very best men we could get for

1 Ted’s “Sunset on the Marsh,” attributed to Jacob Van Vechten, appeared in
Scribner’s Magazine in January 1907. The first line reads “Apollo drives his bitter
stallions down”

1 Roosevelt, breaking the precedent which had held the American Presidents to the
continental United States, visited Panama in November to inspect the work on the
canal.

2 Charles E. Magoon, at this time Governor of the Canal Zone and minister to
Panama, held those offices until October 1906 when he was appointed Provisional
Governor of Cuba

8 William F. Sands, secretaiy of the legation in Panama, was moved to the same post
m Guatemala. Herbert G. Squiers was appointed minister to Panama.

355

actually digging the canal, but their phenomenal administrative and engi-
neering qualities are not accompanied by any appreciation of the exact quali-
ties necessary in dealing either with a foreign power, and especially a small
Spanish-American power, or with Congress or with the labor situation. You
will need to keep a lookout on their treatment of the latter, because they
fail to understand that a row with labor means a row with Congress. I have
little doubt that sooner or later we shall have to have a row with organized
labor on the Isthmus, but we must be extremely careful that when it comes
we are not only in the right but can prove beyond a possibility of doubt to
Congress that we are in the right. That canal is to be dug, to be dug by
Chinese labor or any other labor that we can get hold of, and the labor
union men are to do their work up to the handle on the Isthmus and be
subordinate if they are to be well treated; nevertheless Shonts and Stevens
must keep in mind the fact that they are not now working for Hill on the
Great Northern but for the United States Government, and that this means
they will have to take into account, so far as with propriety it is possible,
the more deep-seated convictions and prejudices of the American people.
Always yours

P.S Referring to the enclosed letters from Loomis, I feel that we should
act with as little delay as possible, although of course it is mere nonsense to
say that six months will be saved by suddenly acting now . 4 I suggest that

4 Roosevelt was anxious to begin full-scale construction on the Panama Canal In
June 1906, as soon as Congress had approved of the lock-type canal, the President
had asked Stevens and Walston H. Brown, a New York contractor connected with
the bankmg firm of Brown Brothers and Company, to work out a plan for letting
the construction to private contractors. The two men, in July, submitted separate
but virtually identical proposals. Each was designed to enable the government to
select the most competent contractors available for the several different types of
construction work required on the Isthmus. The central recommendation of both
Stevens and Brown was as follows* Contractors chosen by the government for the
work would form themselves into an association. This association would negotiate
a contract with an engineering committee composed of three members appointed
by the government and two members appointed by the association Before the con-
tract was signed, the association and the committee would, through negotiation,
agree upon an estimated total cost for the canal, an approximate date for completion
or the work, and the goods and services, including labor, that would be supplied by
the association Finally the two parties to the contract were to agree upon the per-
centage of the total cost to be paid as a fee to the association together with the
system of premiums and penalties to be awarded for work concluded before or
alter the time limits set in the estimated time schedule.

Roosevelt tentatively approved of this Stevens-Brown series of proposals But
William Howard Taft objected on the grounds that the selection of contractors,
which precluded open bidding, would stir up unpleasant political reactions Stevens
strongly opposed Taft’s argument for open bids on the ground that it would produce
a “conglomeration of bids” that would make the choice of competent contractors
very difficult, especially in view of the legal obligation of the government to select
the lowest bidder.

In spite of these objections, Taft’s argument prevailed On October 12 the public
invitation for bids on the canal was issued. Three things m the invitation deserve
special attention first, the bidders were required to give evidence of impressive
financial security, second, the bids were to take the form — not of bids on the total

356

you and Shonts look up this man Brown very carefully. Evidently Shonts
and Stevens think they have got the right plan, through which Brown and
the other contractors can be used. It seems to me as if their plan was all
right and I hear well of Brown, but it is a matter of such importance that
we must have not only Brown but all the other contractors looked into and
be sure we have got good men.

I enclose an editorial from the Journal of Commerce which I should like
to have sent to Mr. Stevens for a specific answer to the part I have marked.
I would like a definite statement as to whether any men under Mr. Stevens
have been appointed or are being retained because of political “pull” or in-
fluence or personal favoritism. 5 1 do not for a moment believe such to be the
case, but think it would be well to have a definite statement on record.

4004 • TO HENRY white Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Oyster Bay, August 14, 1906

Dear White: You have such discretion that I feel able to say that you can
make what use of this letter you desire, provided always that the man to
whom you quote it realizes that in such a matter as the limitation or reduc-
tion of armaments it is not possible for me definitely to commit myself
without knowing what the actual conditions at The Hague Conference may
be. 1 Therefore what I am about to say must be taken as tentative and sug-
gestive and not as definitely binding me, and still less the nation I represent.
I agree entirely with Haldane that it is very advisable to put a check to the

cost of construction — but of the percentage of the total cost that the contractor
would accept as his fee, third, unlike the plan proposed by ‘Stevens and Brown,
which provided that all financial, technical and administrative requirements would be
negotiated and agreed upon before the contract was signed, these requirements, in
the revised plan of open bids, would be, in general, settled only after the signing of
the contract

In December the terms of the invitation were modified because prospective con-
tractors had found the financial conditions too severe. In spite of these modifications
only four bids were presented before the final day of January 12. Of these only
two, that of William J. Oliver and that of the MacArthur-Gillespie syndicate, were
“worthy of consideration.” The open bidding and the stringent financial conditions
imposed had frightened off many competent contractors and most of the reliable
houses from which financial support could be sought. The difficulties in selecting
a contracting concern by this method — described in Numbers 4223 and 4254 —
ultimately forced Roosevelt to give up the plan to have the canal built by private
firms See Appendix I

5 Shonts supplied the President with a statement of employees hired and discharged
by the commission which showed that patronage was not a consideration m the
selection of canal employees

1 White was attempting to “promote an understanding” between Roosevelt and the
British Secretary for War, Richard Burdon Haldane, Viscount Haldane, in an arms
limitation plan for the Hague Conference. He sent Haldane a paraphrase of this
letter. White’s effort, however, came to nothing, for, reacting to Germany’s milita-
rism, the British abandoned the idea of reducing armaments For a full discussion of
White’s work on this matter, see Nevins, White, ch. xv, especially pp. 249-251.

357

inordinate growth of armaments; and I further agree with Haldane that in
one sense we are peculiarly in a position to propose their limitation or re-
duction, but in another sense we are not, because we have a small navy (and
an army so much smaller as to seem infinitesimal) compared with the armed
forces of the other great powers which m point of population, extent of
territory, wealth and resources, can be put m the same category with us.
Therefore we cannot ourselves reduce our forces. We could not possibly
reduce our army; I have already reduced it since I have been President by
about twenty-five per cent. Think what a similar percentage of reduction
would mean to the continental armies of Europe yet with us it merely meant
cutting down some twenty-five thousand men. We now have it at the very
lowest possible limit. As for our navy, I think that we have it as regards
number of units just at about the right point. All that I feel we should do
is steadily, though gradually, to replace inefficient with efficient units. I
should say that this would mean a program of building about a battleship
each year. Now and then we could omit a battleship. Now and then we
should have to add a cruiser or a few torpedo boats. Would it help to have
a program for Europe and Japan with which the above program for us would
be compatible?

So much for what I should like to go into — and I should very much
like to put a stop to this rivalry in building up armies and navies. Now for
the practicability of the program. You know all the inside of my dealings
with the Kaiser at Algeciras, and know how very limited my influence over
him is. My course with him during the last five years has been uniform. I
admire him, respect him, and like him. I think him a big man, and on the
whole a good man, but I think his international and indeed his personal at-
titude one of intense egoism. I have always been most polite with him, have
done my best to avoid our taking any attitude which could possibly give
him legitimate offense, and have endeavored to show him that I was sin-
cerely friendly to him and to Germany. Moreover, where I have forced
him to give way I have been sedulously anxious to build a bridge of gold
for him, and to give him the satisfaction of feeling that his dignity and repu-
tation in the face of the world were safe. In other words, where I have had
to take part of the kernel from him, I have been anxious that he should have
all the shell possible, and have that shell painted any way he wished. At the
same time I have had to speak with extreme emphasis to him on more than
one occasion; and on one occasion (that of Venezuela) have had to make a
display of force and to convince him definitely that I would use the force if
necessary. At the time of the Venezuela business I saw the German Ambassa-
dor privately myself, told him to tell the Kaiser that I had put Dewey in
charge of our fleet to maneuver in West Indian waters; that the world at
large should know this merely as a maneuver, and we should strive in every
way to appear simply as co-operating with the Germans; but that I regretted
to say that the popular feeling was such that I should be obliged to interfere,

358

by force if necessary, if the Germans took any action which looked like the
acquisition of territory in Venezuela or elsewhere along the Caribbean; that
this was not in any way intended as a threat, but as the position on the part
of the Government which the American people would demand, and that I
wanted him to understand it before the two nations drifted into such a posi-
tion that trouble might come. I do not know whether it was a case of post
hoc or propter hoc ; but immediately afterwards the Kaiser made to me the
proposition that I should arbitrate myself, which I finally got him to modify
so that it was sent to The Hague. I need hardly say that in showing anybody
any part of this letter, or telling him any part of this letter, you will of course
have to keep all I have said to you about the Kaiser absolutely to yourself.
I would not want any of your brother ambassadors, save only George Meyer
if you happen to meet him, to see it. The Kaiser, like Carlyle, is “gey ill” to
live with, on occasions.

Therefore I have no knowledge whether I could accomplish anything
whatever with the Kaiser. I will try, of course. That I can work with France
and England I have no doubt; but I would like Haldane and Grey and would
like the French people to understand that in my judgment it is essential that
we should have some fair guaranty that a given policy will be carried out
in good faith. I should feel it a great misfortune for the free peoples to dis-
arm and leave the various military despotisms and military barbarisms armed.
If China became civilized like Japan, if the Turkish Empire were abolished,
and all of uncivilized Asia and Africa held by England or France or Russia
or Germany, then I believe we should be within sight of a time when a gen-
uine international agreement could be made by which armies and navies
could be reduced so as to meet merely the needs of internal and international
police work. But at present we are far from any such ideal possibility, and
we can only accomplish good at all by not trying to accomplish the impos-
sible good. Sincerely yours

4005 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 15, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker . Do not think me pigheaded if I leave my tariff state-
ment substantially as it is, inasmuch as you do not think it bad and merely
think that the proposed change would be a certain improvement. The Indi-
anapolis News and other papers might say it was a committal to an immedi-
ate revision, but they would know that they were lying; and on the other
hand the paragraph m question may salve the feelings of men as various as
Lodge, Dick and Crumpacker, all of whom feel that there is tariff revision
sentiment in their States, and dread the effect of an out-and-out standpat
declaration. The words “stand pat” evidently irritate a great many people,
and it is curious how much mischief mere words can sometimes do, and so

359

I should suggest for your consideration that the Congressional Committee
avoid the use of these words.

For instance, Sherman, who heartily approved of my letter and said that
he did not wish to change a word in it, when the newspapermen interviewed
him on going away, stated to them that the campaign book would be a
straight-out standpat document. I have already received a great many pro-
tests against these standpat statements. Even in your own speech I think it
would be well if you could soften down what you say about there being no
revision at once, by accompanying it with a statement running in some such
fashion as, that while just at this time you felt that there had not been a
showing which would warrant the American people throwing business into
the confusion which would be caused by revision, yet the Republican party
stood ready to enter upon the task of revision the very moment that the
conditions of the country and the evident sentiment of our people were such
as to make this revision advisable.

Lodge has written me asking me to put in something about the maximum
and minimum. Do you object to this or not? Will you wire me on receipt of
this letter, simply saying “I consent,” or “I advise against the proposition”?
I shall then govern myself accordingly, inserting it m cautious form in one
case, or leaving out all reference to it in the other.

Lodge also wanted me to say something general about the immigration
bill, but here again it seems to me questionable whether to do so. As you
know, I favored the bill; but I favored it not on the ground that it was a
vote-getter, but because I felt that it would do good to the country, and in
this campaign I am afraid that any allusion to it would do harm rather than
good. Lodge also wanted allusions made to the naturalization and one or two
other bills, but they seem to me hardly important enough. My idea is to say
nothing that will not help us in the election. It is not the time for academic
discussion. Bob Bacon, for instance, is red-hot about the maximum and mini-
mum, as he thinks it is of great importance to us in our foreign relations. So
do I, but I do not want to go into trying to convert our people to any policy
just at this moment; my aim is to make them understand how admirable the
work of the majority of the House of Representatives, and incidentally the
Republican party, has been, so that they shall not commit the folly of halting
all progress by sending a Democratic majority to Congress.

As soon as you telegraph me I shall send the letter to Sherman so that it
shall be published in ample time not only for the Maine but for the Vermont
election. Heaven only knows whether it will do good, but I hope it at least
will not do harm.

I feel just as you do about Littlefield. I need hardly say that I value no
man who has not independence of character; but Littlefield made the mis-
take of thinking that it was a good thing to take a position now and then
which showed that he was out of sympathy with the President or a majority
of Congress, and this has undoubtedly hurt him. Of course all I can do to

360

help him in his contest will be done. Taft is going to speak for him. I regard
it as of peculiar importance, under existing conditions, to elect Littlefield by
a substantial majority. Smcerely yours

4006 ’ TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 15, 1906

Dear Cabot : I do not believe that it would be expedient to touch on immi-
gration in the Watson letter. I did all I could for the immigration bill, be-
cause I thought it would be of benefit to the country. I did not think it
would be an advantage politically. On the contrary I thought it would prob-
ably be a disadvantage. Such being the case, it does not seem to me expedient
to make any mention of it in a document which is intended to influence
votes for Congress rather than to influence Congress.

As to the maximum and minimum, Jim Sherman strongly objects, evi-
dently feeling that it would confuse the issues. I have not heard from Can-
non about it. He wanted me to make more of a standpat statement than I
made, and I have been trying to get him to make less of a standpat statement
than he intends to make. Of course as far as I can I want to work in agree-
ment with those responsible for the House campaign. I have been protesting
to Sherman and Cannon against their use of the words “stand pat,” quoting
what you said and expressing my hearty agreement with it, namely, that a
good deal of the opposition we are experiencing from tariff revisionists is
due to the use of unfortunate terms, “stand pat” being a striking example of
them. I do not believe that the voters as a whole know anything about the
maximum and minimum. I do not think they are educated up to it. They
do understand the expression “stand pat,” and do not like it.

I send you a letter from a man named Miles, and a letter which I pro-
posed sendmg to him but did not send, deeming it better to say it to him in
person. What is your judgment about the letter?

That is an admirable address of young Hill’s . 1 1 return it to you. I think
it a rather remarkable pamphlet, and the young fellow must have the right
stuff in him. Ever yours

4007 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 16, 1906

My dear Bonaparte: We can decide about the Connecticut later, but I agree
with you that if she is ready in time it looks to me as if she was the best ship
for me to go to Panama on.

The Columbia is evidently the right ship for Root.

1 A Memorial Day address delivered at Woodstock, Vermont, by Arthur Dehon
Hill, then a young Boston lawyer, later a professor of law at Harvard and a leader
of the Boston bar.

361

I congratulate you upon the way you have handled that meat business m
the New York navy yard 1 — but, my dear fellow, this is almost needless, for
I have merely to congratulate you upon the way you are handling all things
connected with the Navy Department.

The correspondence with the Providence Journal delighted my soul, and
I laughed especially over the sentence m the last editorial in which he men-
tions your proposed destruction of the ship Constitution as being presumably
due to my instigation — the good creature evidently thinking that my violent
hostility to the Constitution is extended to anything which bears the hated
title! 2 I take a certain malign satisfaction in seeing a professional goo-goo
paper assume the same attitude toward you that its kind has always assumed
toward me; and I loved that touch in which the Journal spoke of your
praiseworthy conduct as President of the Civil Service Reform Association,
and inferentially contrasted it with your conduct since you had come under
the upas-like influence of my administration — the only two instances which
he had been able to specify being your having obeyed the law m the Pay-
master Lukesh business, and your having proposed for the Constitution such
an end as the most famous Norse Vikings so often proposed both for their
ships and for themselves Faithfully yours

[Handwritten] PS I feel that Evans should explain about sending out
those ships in close order in the fog. Has any explanation been asked*

4008 • TO GEORGE BRUCE CORTELYOU Roosevelt Mss

Oyster Bay, August 17, 1906

My dear Cortely ou. Have you taken up the matter of the charges by the rail-
ways for the mails? My attention was directed to a recent report in the
Cosmopolitan to the effect that we paid ten times as much as was paid by the
express companies. Of course the fact that a thing appears m the Cosmopoli-
tan is presumptive evidence of its falsehood, but we may have an attack made
upon us about the railways and the mails and I should like to feel that we are
armed in the matter. Moreover, I have never been satisfied that we were not
paying too much. 1 I have a great regard for the personal character of Mr

1 At New York and Norfolk the Navy Department had changed its method of
buying meat, adopting the system of letting contracts to the lowest bidders Con-
trary to the prediction of opponents that the department would lose money by having
to replace inferior meats, the meat supplied proved to be generally up to govern-
ment specifications. On those occasions when it was not, the government was able
to replace it m the open market at the expense of the contractor
2 In his annual report Bonaparte had recommended that the Constitution should be
destroyed, used, perhaps, “as a target.” He proposed that the histone name should
be continued on a new cruiser. Among the vigorous and justified attacks on these
recommendations was a particularly harsh indictment of both the President and
Secretary in the Providence Journal on July 27

x The Cosmopolitan had exaggerated, but the Postmaster General and much of
Congress shared Roosevelt’s dissatisfaction with, the railroad rates for carrymg mail.

362

Shallenberger , 2 but I know that many of those who are anxious to have him
kept in are closely identified with the great railroad interests, and I think we
should be very careful to see that we are not doing or con tinuin g to do
what is improper for those interests. Sincerely yours

4009 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 17, 1906

Dear Will: All right. Have the amount of money mentioned by General
Ainsworth expended for temporary stabling for the cavalry at Boise, Idaho.

I enclose the proposition from Brown about which Stevens wrote me and
Shonts spoke to me . 1 Offhand, I am inclined to think as Stevens and Shonts
do that this is the right proposition, but of course I feel that we should look
very, very carefully into the character and responsibility of Brown and all
those associated with him before making up our minds. The matter is of such
vital importance that we cannot afford to make any mistake.

After consultation with Moody I decided to appoint James S. Harlan on
the Interstate Commerce Commission.

1 have pretty nearly concluded to appoint Lurton. If I do, I shall want
to appoint a circuit judge in his place. What States are included in the
circuit? It may be that we shall want to promote a district judge, and it may
be that we shall want to make an appointment outright. I wonder if Garfield
would care to go on as circuit judge. If he would, I should be strongly
tempted to offer it to him. What are your views as to any man in the district?

I feel that we should undoubtedly appoint a Republican, and by preference
a man from north of the Ohio River, as we are appointing a southern Demo-
crat to the great position on the Supreme Court.

Have you looked at the Cosmopolitan? It is crammed full of the usual
type of slanderous falsehood, and one of the most infamous of the articles
is the leading one, by Poultney Bigelow . 2 Nevertheless, I suppose we shall

The Postmaster General, in his annual report for 1906, recorded his impression that
the rates were excessive, admitted that he lacked evidence, and requested Congress
to authorize a commission of investigation. Congress debated the question, wrangled
over conflicting statistics, and just before adjourning in March 1907, lowered the
railroad mail rates moderately. See No. 4261.

2 William Shadrack Shallenberger, Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, 1877-
1883, Second Assistant Postmaster General, 1897-1907.

1 See No. 4003, note 4.

2 Bigelow, in his “Panama — the Human Side,” printed m the September and later
issues of Cosmopolitan , continued his unrestrained but unsubstantiated accusations of
mismanagement m Panama (see No. 3963 ) . He condemned the government officials
as corrupt, the police force as brutal, the medical officers as incompetent, and the
labor force as inefficient. Colon, he claimed, was a filthy, disease-ridden, almost
uninhabitable town with an undrinkable water supply. The new 500,000,000-gallon
Mount Hope reservoir that was being built would never, said Bigelow, hold water.
To answer these charges, Bishop wrote a long and carefully documented letter based
on data collected by Stevens (see No. 4056). Roosevelt, who visited the Mount

363

have to meet some of his statements. Would it not be well to get from
Stevens a direct statement as to Bigelow’s assertion on page 460 that many
of the canal officials own lots in Colon and have a pecuniary interest in con-
gesting population there so that rents may rise? Then, also, a statement as to
the alleged reservoir for Colons I shall visit that reservoir anyhow, but I
think it might be well to have ready a detailed answer to this first article of
Bigelow’s, handling him as roughly as he deserves, but giving him specific
answers wherever he makes specific allegations. I believe that Bishop could
write such an answer. The man is a slanderer, a liar, and an all-around skunk,
but nevertheless it behooves us to examine and see whether any of his state-
ments are true. Shonts and Stevens do not even yet understand that this is not
like a private work, and that one very important part of the business is
ability to answer in detail the accusations made to us. Stevens feels, and in
one way quite justly, that it is pure interference with the work to require
him to abandon it in order to answer criticisms. He is quite right in this,
and the real enemies of the work are the Congressmen who make charges
which they know, or ought to know, have no foundation, and the unspeak-
ably putrid creatures like Poultney Bigelow who furnish the material for
these charges. But Stevens is entirely wrong m believing that these charges
can be ignored, and especially that the Congressmen can be ignored. Of
course in the long run the work itself can answer the charges, but we will not
be allowed to go on with the work unless we are able to satisfy Congress that
what we are doing is all right. Stevens’ strength is in part his weakness. He is
able to do the work as I believe no other engineer m the United States could
do it, but he is making no efforts whatever to develop any man m the second
place. I doubt if he would consent to have any really good man put under
him. This renders it all the more important for us to try to get within our
range of vision one or two good men to whom, if necessary, the job could
be offered.

Lady Susan Townley had an excellent article on the canal, taking directly
the opposite view from Bigelow. She made one suggestion which I wish you
would ask Stevens to consider. She says that the American is not accustomed
to deal with the Jamaican negro, whereas there are plenty of whites m
Jamaica who are accustomed to deal with him and who get good work out
of him, that therefore it would be well to get some white Jamaican foreman
to handle these negroes. I should like some information as to whether this
is feasible.

Hope reservoir while at Panama in November 1906, was delighted to tell Congress
that “with typical American humor, the engineering corps . . . have christened a
large boat which is now used on the reservoir by the name of the individual who
thus denied the possibility of the reservoir’s existence.”

In sharp contrast to Bigelow’s bitter criticism was Lady Susan Townley’s praise
of the canal administration m an article published in the Living Age of August 18,
1906. Lady Townley wrote that the food and housing were excellent, the police force
of Jamaicans and Americans effective and disciplined, and Gorgas’ health program
brilliant. Colon’s condition she reported was being rapidly changed for the better,

364

I shall go over that letter of mine to Watson in view of your comments; 5
but both as to the future and the past I feel like stan din g by my expressions
as to Santo Domingo and Panama. I certainly do not feel like refraining
from saying in substance that the opposition to Santo Domingo is opposition
to Panama. I shall work in what you suggest about the labor business. Ap-
parently Cannon handled it well in his speech to the nominating convention.
I have wished that he and the other leaders would not assume such an out-
right standpat attitude as regards the tariff. But we must do our best to elect
them.

When do you speak in Littlefield’s district? Ever yours

4010 * TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 18, 1906

My dear Trevelyan: It seems to me that the last sessions of the national
legislatures alike of Great Britain, France and the United States have pos-
sessed peculiar interest. I have followed the work of your Parliament with
entire sympathy on most points, although there are of course two or three
matters as to which I do not know enough to express any opinion. I was
really greatly impressed and pleased with Clemenceau’s speech in answer to
the socialist Jaures when the latter attacked Clemenceau for preserving order
at the time of the riotous demonstration by the workingmen. Clemenceau
must be a very able man, and the program he sketched out as that which his
party should undertake in economic matters is substantially the program to
which I should like to see the American people committed. Here we are
greatly hampered in dealing with industrial questions affecting combinations
of capital and combinations of labor both with reference to one another and
with reference to the general public, by the peculiarities of our Federal Con-
stitution. It is most important that so far as possible these matters should be
entrusted to the Federal Government; and we made astounding progress
during the last session of Congress along the lines of this desirable policy by
greatly increasing the power of the federal authorities to deal with interstate
commerce, both in connection with the railroads, in connection with the
meat-packing industry, and in connection with pure food. We also got a very
good employers’ liability law passed, not to speak of the work of the Panama
canal and other matters.

I have now been five years President. It is about time for the swinging of
the pendulum. I should not be in the least surprised to see the Congressional
elections go against us; but whether this happens or not, it will remain true '
that during those five years we have accomplished a great quantity of sub-
stantive work of an important land. Indeed, I can hardly recall any other

'See No 3982.

3 6 5

five years since the reconstruction days succeeding the Civil War during
which as much important work has been done. I do not think that this has
been undertaken in the least in a demagogic spirit. We have tried, and 1
think we have succeeded, in making it evident that while we intend to do
all we can in the wayof giving the widest social and economic opportunity to
the wageworker and to the poor man, and while we intend to supervise and
control the business use of wealth so that it shall not be used in an unethical
or antisocial spirit, yet that we intended fearlessly to put down anything in
the nature of mob violence, and that we set our faces like flint against the
preachers who appeal to or excite the dark and evil passions of men. I shall
hope later to get action taken along the lines of the graduated income tax
and the graduated inheritance tax. Just at present we have been obliged to
make it evident that we will not submit to the tyranny of the trades-union
any more than to the tyranny of the corporation.

Of the absolute propriety of this general course from the standpoint of
the nation and of the good that it will ultimately do I am certain. But of
course, as inevitably happens in any period of constructive legislation, we
tend to alienate the extremists of both sides. There are great numbers of
radicals who think we have not gone far enough, and a great number of
reactionaries who think we have gone altogether too far, and we array
against ourselves both the sordid beneficiaries of the evils we assail and the
wild-eyed agitators who tend to indiscriminate assault on everything good
and bad alike. This is of course not an experience in any way peculiar to
our contest. It is the kind of combination that always appears in every such
contest. The consolation is that even though the alliance is temporarily effec-
tive, it is never able wholly to undo all the good work that has been done

In your last letter you spoke very bitterly of Balfour. Would you mind
writing me exactly what it is about him that makes you feel so bitterly ^
With very many of the policies with which Mr. Balfour has been identified
I have not met the slightest sympathy, but I had not supposed he was a man
who*personally excited much active hostility.

I am interested, of course, in The Hague conference. On the one hand
I am anxious that we shall do something effective toward the substitution
of other agents than war for settling disputes between nations On the other
hand, I feel very strongly that if we try to go too far — if we try to do
what the preposterous apostles of peace of the type of ex-Secretary of State
Foster and, I am sorry to say, Congressman Burton in this country would
desire — we should put ourselves in the position of having the free peoples
rendered helpless in the face of the various military despotisms and bar-
barisms of the world. For example, if we can come to an agreement to stop
the general increase of the navies of the world, I shall be very glad. But I do
not feel that England and the United States should impair the efficiency of
their navies if it is permitted to other Powers, which may some day be hostile
to them, to go on building up and increasing their military strength.

366

I shall inflict upon you a copy of my letter on behalf of the Republican
candidates for Congress, which I send herewith.

Believe me, with warm regards, Very sincerely yours

4011 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 18, 1906

My dear Elihu: I suppose this will be forwarded to you at Panama; it is
merely a word of greeting and of hearty congratulation upon the success of
your trip. You have made a great impression here, and, as far as from this
distance one can judge, you have made a great impression in South America.
Your speeches have been admirable from every standpoint — but this is a
matter of course. In short, the trip seems to me to have realized all and more
than all I dared hope, and I feel that it marks a permanent epoch in the
relations of this country with the other American republics. I hope that Mrs.
Root has enjoyed herself. Give her our love. By the way, Elihu spent last
night with us and was just as nice as he could be. He had to go away early
this morning. By George! I hope that a few years hence I shall be feeling the
same pride in what my boys are doing that you have a right to feel in what
he is doing.

I have had a real rest this summer, and there has been very little of
political importance. We are now beginning the fall campaign. I have never
known Congress to do quite as well as this Congress has done, and it seems
to me that it is not often that an administration can say with greater truth
than we can that we have carried out with signal success the policies we have
undertaken. Therefore if all men were reasonable and farseemg we could
count upon sufficient support to re-elect a Republican Congress; but judging
from my experience of the past the time has about come for the swinging of
the pendulum, and m such circumstances the people take the greatest satisfac-
tion, under the lead of the “educated conscience, 5 ’ in upsetting those who
have done well, on the ground, in the first place, that all that could be ac-
complished by them has already been accomplished, so that their usefulness
is ended, and in the second place, that there are some things that they have
not done anyway and so it is time for a new deal. The tariff is of course what
will cause us the most trouble. The demand for its immediate revision is
entirely irrational; but this does not alter the fact that there is a strong
demand, and as Cannon and the Congressional leaders will not — and I «there-
fore» really cannot — say that there will be an immediate revision, I should
not be surprised to see this issue used to defeat us. Moreover, the labor
people are causing all the trouble they can. I do not think that the Congress
last year did all they might have for these labor people, but their position is
so extreme that they have left us no alternative but to come out squarely
against some of their demands. Cannon has done this in a very straightfor-
ward and manly way. Taft will follow suit in his speech m Littlefield’s dis-

367

trict, and I shall back them up in a letter I am writing to the Republican
whip in Congress — Watson. We are absolutely right and are entitled to the
support of all good people; but I doubt if we get that support, at any rate to
a degree sufficient to counterbalance the opposition of the labor men. The
success of the labor movement at the last elections in England has im-
mensely encouraged the labor leaders here. The very wealthy people with
their usual shortsightedness are quite willing to side for the time being with
the labor people because they think it will pumsh me. So while it is possible
we may win, I should not be at all surprised at a heavy defeat. Isn’t it a great
comfort to feel that in such circumstances it really does not alter the fact that
during the time we have been in office we have accomplished great sub-
stantive work for good, and that while some of what we have done will be
swept away, a very large part will remain? I have recently been reading a
book, which you must read — a life of Hamilton, by an Englishman named
Oliver, he shows how, in Hamilton’s few years of public life, which ended
by his seeing the actual triumph of the men and the seeming triumph of
the principles to which he was most opposed, he nevertheless accomplished
an amount of work which has remained vital and effective until the present
day.

Taft has definitely concluded not to accept the judgeship I shall prob-
ably on the advice of Taft and Day put in Lurton, an ex-Confederate and
nominal Democrat from Tennessee, but a man who is a good, sound, national
man, who, as far as I can see, takes just the attitude we take as regards the
control of corporations, the checking of labor people when they go wrong,
the right so to construe the Constitution as to permit us properly to manage
our insular affairs, and the propriety of the National Government doing what
it can to secure certain elementary civil rights to the Negro. In my judgment
this action of Taft’s puts him at once in the rank of Presidential candidates,
though this he will doubtless even to himself deny. I am of course personally
glad that he has taken it, for it is a strength to me to have him in the Cabinet,
and handling the Philippines and the canal. By the way, I shall have a muss
with the labor people over our use of Chinese on the canal. I should suppose
that even the most fat-headed fools would see that the white man is not
particularly interested in the question as to whether the Chinaman supplants
the West Indian Negro in building the canal, but this is not the view that
Gompers and his people take.

Give my warm regards to Captain Winslow. In a fortnight I shall have a
big naval review in the Sound, and the day after I shall go off on the
Missouri to see some gun practice. It will be an excellent thing for the navy
in every way, and I need hardly add that it will be the subject of hysterical
attack m many of the newspapers.

Higgins has paid the penalty of his weakness here in New York. You
recall how strongly we urged him to act early last winter. He would not do
it. Finally, in the spring he came to Washington, and after a little beating

368

around the bush requested me, to my great relief and pleasure, not to take
any part in the fight; evidently fearing that I would do more harm than
good. Well, he shilly-shallied until Platt and Odell combined, and when the
vote came in the committee the other day they beat him by just one ma-
jority. 1 * * * I think they got away two or three of his votes by corrupt means,
for Odell has been spending money like water; but the net result is that
Higgins is made to look like a weak and incompetent creature before the
people, and has been stood on his head by Odell. The Sun and Evening Post
are now enthusiastically backing Jerome for the Democratic nomination.
If he gets it, Hearst will run against him as an independent There will then
at least be the consolation that we will have fifty per cent of satisfaction, in
the defeat of either of them. Higgins is a very weak candidate, and it may
be that it will be found necessary to nominate someone else in his place. Odell
and Platt want Hughes; and upon my word I am not at all certain but that
it would be well to nominate him. Ever yours

4012 • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 18, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I enclose a letter, dated August 15th, from ex-
Senator Jones as Attorney for Theodore N. Bamsdall of Pittsburgh, Penn-
sylvania, accompanied by certain papers. I received from him as well as from
you a copy of the printed pamphlet containing the examination before you
on the question of leasing oil lands and natural gas wells in the Indian Ter-
ritory and Oklahoma. It appears that Mr. Barnsdall is in a certain sense the
representative of Messrs. Guffey and Galey, or at least has interests with
them.

This is not a matter with which I am especially familiar, and before
coming to even a tentative decision as regards any of the points raised in this
letter I shall want to hear from you, and very possibly to go over the whole
matter in the Cabinet, where we can have the benefit of the judgment of the
trained lawyers among its members. Would it not also be well to have a
report from Garfield on this matter, inasmuch as he made some very careful
investigations into the Standard Oil business m Kansas, and I suppose in the
Indian Territory and Oklahoma^ 5 My general principle, as you know, is that
it is inadvisable from every standpoint for the Government to spend its
efforts in seeking to prevent a combination; that the true course for the
Government to pursue is not to try to prevent combinations, but to reserve

1 At a meeting of the Republican State Committee on August 15, the Higgins faction

moved the election of Lieutenant Governor M Linn Bruce, their unannounced but
recognized choice to succeed Higgins as governor, as temporary chairman of the
forthcoming state convention. The motion at first carried, but Odell forced its

reconsideration and defeat. Later two supporters of Charles Evans Hughes, whom

Platt and Odell favored for governor, were designated temporary and permanent

chairmen of the convention

its right to exercise a rigid and effective control over them in the interest
of the public, and of course doubly in the interest of the Indians, who are
the special wards of the Government. However, while this is my general
feeling, there may be and probably are special reasons why the policy would
be a bad one in this particular case.

Senator Jones raises several distinct issues on behalf of Mr. Barnsdall. In
the first place I would like a report on Mr Barnsdall’s request that he be
allowed to select 4800 acres of leases for oil and gas purposes in the Cherokee
and Creek country, out of the leases he already had in his own right, amount-
ing to 4700 acres, and those which he acquired as he admits without warrant
of law to the extent of 3300 acres from Guffey and Galey. I am not in a
position to express even a tentative opinion on the propriety of this request.

The next request is for the ratification of Mr. BarnsdalPs contracts for
drilling about 7000 acres of leases of other people’s lands in which he is in
no sense an owner, these drilling contracts, as he asserts, being made in good
faith on the advice of his attorneys Apparently it is the contention of the
Interior Department that this is simply a method of evading the requirements
of the Department. As to this I am by no means sure There seems to be
much force in the argument that it is impossible, or at least highly undesira-
ble, in many cases, for the man of small capital, including the landowner of
small capital, to try to sink these oil wells himself, as many of them turn out
to be dry. I know that in Pennsylvania and West Virginia it is customary
for the farmers, including the shrewdest of them, to contract with the big
oil men of the type of Barnsdall, for these big men to go to the expense and
risk of sinking the well, and then give some fixed royalty to the landowner
I should like to have a clear showing as to whether or not there are objections
to a similar course being pursued, under the supervision of the Secretary of the
Interior, and under such regulations as he might impose, in Oklahoma and
Indian Territory. If the system works well in Pennsylvania and West Vir-
ginia, it would seem to me that the presumption is that it would work well
elsewhere, especially as pipe lines are now common carriers. Of course this
presumption may be overcome by facts of which I have no knowledge It
seems to me — although, as I wish to repeat, on what I do not m any way
regard as a sufficient consideration of the case — that it would be possible
to have this privilege granted in ways that would insure an equal chance to
the independent oil companies as against the Standard, and in any event we
could retain the right to see that every oil company was forced to pay an
adequate remuneration to the owner of the land, and we would thereby do
away with the evil effects which I have no doubt obtain in Pennsylvama and
West Virginia, due to the Standard having a monopoly, so that the farmer
could not get his oil out unless he did it by means of the Standard.

The next matter brought up by Mr. Barnsdall is in reference to the
Osage reservation, under the law of Congress passed in March, 1905, which

370

law I signed on yonr recommendation that I should do so, the proviso
being, if I remember it correctly, embodied in the Indian bill. Here, ap-
parently, Barnsdall’s contention is that he has spent large sums of money in
developing properties which he acquired in good faith for a valuable con-
sideration, and he asks that action be taken which recognizes his rights in the
subleases that he has acquired. It appears that these subleases include the
very large amount of 1 60,000 acres. I know nothing whatever of the equities
of this case and would like a full report upon it.

I also know little of the matters regarding the natural gas to which
Senator Jones refers in his letter. He contends that there is more gas than can
be used profitably in the neighborhood, and that there would be a market
for it in Kansas City and Saint Louis, but not for any such small amount as
can be obtained from 4800 acres of land, and that the gas should be disposed
of to any responsible single person (whether Mr. Barnsdall or anyone else)
in a sufficiently large amount of land surface to justify the building of a pipe
line. He further contends that the gas should not be paid for by a percentage
of the gross product of sale, but by a fixed sum per year per well. He asserts
that the latter is the well-nigh invariable practice in the States where natural
gas wells exist, and submits papers in proof of this assertion. He offers to pay
$200 per well, and thinks that he should be permitted to acquire the gas on
at least 200,000 acres of land. He insists that to provide for compensation
of gas wells on the percentage basis would require a meter at every well,
which would be very costly and expensive to maintain, but states he is en-
tirely willing to pay the percentage of gross sales as imposed by the Interior
Department if the owner of the land will provide the meter and provide for
the expense connected with it. I am not familiar with the business, but I am
informed that Mr. Barnsdall exaggerates the expense of a meter; that it is
often possible to combine a number of wells so as to use the meter for the
product of all of them, and furthermore, that if a well proves unproductive
the meter can be taken away and used on a productive well. Under these
circumstances it would seem to me possible to provide that if it was found
that a well produced less than a certain amount the meter could be removed
and an outright sum paid for it, while the meters would be used to test the
products of the wells, or the joint products of the several wells, in any given
district where it was found that they were very productive. There may be,
of course, objections of which I am ignorant to the adoption of these sug-
gestions. Of course we should want to look out and see that no gas pipe line
was put in and really used for oil, as a method of getting around any law or
any regulation of the Interior Department; and it would seem to me that if
the gas wells are very productive it would not be just or fair to permit an
insignificant sum to be paid for them; and if very productive, $200 would be
an insignificant sum.

I should like a detailed comment made upon Senator Jones’ letter, and if

37i

possible, to have this comment arranged under heads that will enable us to
take up the points one after the other, as I have done in this letter. 1

Trusting Mrs. Hitchcock and you are having a most pleasant vacation,
believe me. Sincerely yours

P.S. Your telegram received. I have met Colonel Butler and have heard
very highly of him; but not remembering his first name I did not know to
whom you referred when you telegraphed His letter has come and it is very
strong indeed. Would you be willing to send to Colonel Butler a copy of
this letter and ask him for his comments upon it? It seems fairly providential
that there should be an independent oil operator whom we know to be
reputable who can give us such comments. I would particularly like Colonel
Butler’s comments on the one part of Senator Jones’ letter which made an
impression upon me; that is the question about boring the wells in partner-
ship, in the second part of Jones’ letter.

4013 • to james eli watson Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, August 18, 1906

My dear Mr. Watson: I hear through Speaker Cannon and Representative
Sherman that you have volunteered to give your services to the Congres-
sional Committee for the entire campaign, without regard to the effect it may
have upon your canvass in your own district; and I feel like writing you a
word of congratulation and of earnest hope for the success of your efforts.
If there were only partisan issues involved in this contest I should’ hesitate
to say anything publicly in reference thereto. But I do not feel that such is
the case. On the contrary, I feel that all good citizens who have the welfare
of America at heart should appreciate the immense amount that has been
accomplished by the present Congress organized as it is, and the urgent need
of keeping this organization in power. With Mr. Cannon as speaker, the
House has accomplished a literally phenomenal amount of good work. It has
shown a courage, good sense and patriotism that it would be a real and

1 Hitchcock had claimed that Bamsdall, actmg as agent for the Standard Oil Com-
pany, had acquired control over oil and natural gas leases for more than 180,000
acres in Indian and Oklahoma territories. This he had accomplished through illegal
subleasing and transfer of property rights without the required approval of the
Secretary of the Interior In one specific mstance the investigations of Inspector J. G
Wright showed that Barnsdall had received a transfer of over 5,000 acres from
James M Guffey, then Democratic national committeeman from Pennsylvama, and
his partner, John H. Galey. Bamsdall and ex-Senator James K. Jones, an attorney
for the Standard Oil Company, contended that the acreage was necessary to build
a pipe line to St Louis to supply gas at a cheaper price. Hitchcock, on the other
hand, held that Barnsdall was not w illin g to pay a fair percentage of the profits to
the Indians for the use of their oil and gas resources. Interior Department hearings
w r ere held m May and June of 1906 Hitchcock’s opinions were agreed upon by
Garfield and later by Roosevelt, and Barnsdall’s requests were not granted, see
Oil Lands in Indian Territory and Territory of Oklahoma Hearings before the
Secretary of the Interior on Leasing of Oil Lands and Natural-Gas Wells (Washing-
ton, 1906).

372

serious misfortune for the country to fail to recognize. To change the
leadership and organization of the House at this time means to bring con-
fusion upon those who have been successfully engaged in the steady working
out of a great and comprehensive scheme for the betterment of our social,
industrial and civic conditions. Such a change would substitute a purposeless
confusion, a violent and hurtful oscillation between the positions of the ex-
treme radical and the extreme reactionary, for the present orderly progress
along the lines of a carefully thought-out policy.

The interests of this nation are as varied as they are vast. Congress must
take account, not of one national need, but of many and widely different
national needs, and I speak with historic accuracy when I say that not in our
time has any other Congress done so well in so many different fields of
endeavor as the present Congress has done. No Congress can do everything.
Still less can it in one session meet every need. At its first session the present
Congress, m addition to the many tasks it actually completed, undertook
several tasks which I firmly believe it will bring to completion in its second
session next winter. Among these I hope and believe that the bills to pro-
hibit political contributions by corporations, and to lower the duties on im-
ports from the Philippine Islands, each of which has been passed by one
House, will be enacted into law. I hope, and I have reason to believe, that
favorable action will be taken upon the bill limiting the number of hours of
employment of railway employees. These and one or two other measures,
the enactment of which I have reason to hope for, are important. But far
more important are the measures which have actually been passed, and as to
these measures I wish to reiterate that they are not important m a merely
partisan sense, but are important because they subserve the welfare of our
people as a whole, of our nation as an entirety. They are important because
those who enacted them into law thereby showed themselves to be fit repre-
sentatives of all good Americans

In affairs outside of our own country our great work has been beginning
to dig the Panama Canal. The acquisition of the canal strip was due to the
initiative of Congress, and the fact that the work thereon is now being done
in the most thorough and satisfactory fashion is due to the action of the
present Congress at the session just closed. Only this action rendered the
work possible, and the heartiest acknowledgments are due to the farseeing
patriotism of those who thus made it possible. The digging of the Panama
Canal is the colossal engineering feat of all the ages. No task as great of the
kind has ever been undertaken by any other nation. The interests banded
together to oppose it were and are numerous and bitter, and most of them
with a peculiarly sinister basis for their opposition. This sinister opposition
rarely indeed ventures openly to announce its antagonism to the canal as
such. Sometimes it takes the form of baseless accusation against the manage-
ment, and of a demand for an investigation under circumstances which
would mean indefinite delay. Sometimes it takes the form of determined op-

373

position to the adoption of plans which will enable the work to be done not
merely in the best but in the quickest possible way. Had Congress been either
timid or corrupt, and had not the leaders of Congress shown the most far-
sighted resolution in the matter, the work of building the canal would never
have been begun, or if begun, would now have halted. The opposition to the
adoption of the treaty by which our right to build the Panama Canal was
secured; a part at least of the opposition even now being made to the ratifica-
tion of the Santo Domingo treaty, which is one more step in the effort to
make peaceful and secure the waters through which the route of the canal
leads, the constant effort to delay on one pretext and another the actual work
on the canal — all prove how essential it is that if the American people
desire the Panama Canal to be built in speedy and efficient fashion they
should uphold the hands of those who in the present Congress have so
effectively championed this work.

No less praiseworthy has been the attitude of this Congress in continuing
to build and maintain on a high plane of efficiency the United States Navy.
This country is irrevocably committed to the maintenance of the Monroe
Doctrine. It is irrevocably committed to the principle of defending and
policing the canal route. But its championship of the Monroe Doctrine and
its announcement of its intentions as to the canal route, would both be absurd
on their face, if the Nation failed to do its duty in maintaining a thoroughly
efficient navy at as high a point of perfection as can possibly be attained.

Our external affairs are important, but our internal affairs are even more
important, and no other Congress for many a long year has, as regards the
betterment of our internal affairs, so much and such excellent work to its
credit. The tremendous social and industrial changes in our nation have
rendered evident the need of a larger exercise by the national government of
its power to deal with the business use of wealth, and especially of corporate
wealth, in interstate business. It is not too much to say that the course of
Congress within the last few years, and the hearty agreement between the
executive and legislative departments of the nation in taking the needed
action each within its own sphere, have resulted in the nation for the first
time definitely entering upon the career of proper performance of duty in
these matters. The task is peculiarly difficult, because it is one in which the
fanatical or foolish extremist, and the reactionary, whether honest or dis-
honest, play into one another’s hands; and they thereby render it especially
hard to secure legislative and executive action which shall be thoroughgoing
and effective, and yet which shall not needlessly jeopardize the business
prosperity which we all share, even though we do not all share it with as
much equality as we are striving to secure. It is a very easy thing to play
the demagogue in this matter, to confine oneself merely to denouncing the
evils of wealth, and to advocate, often in vague language, measures so sweep-
ing that, while they would entirely fail to correct the evils aimed at, they
would undoubtedly succeed in bringing down the prosperity of the nation

374

with a crash. It is also easy to play the part of the mere obstructionist, to
decline to recognize the great evils of the present system, and to oppose any
effort to deal with them in rational fashion — thereby strengthening im-
mensely the hands of those who advocate extreme and foolish measures. But
it is not easy to do as the present Congress and its immediate predecessors
have done, that is, sternly to disregard alike the self-interest of those who
have profited by the present evils, and the wild clamor of those who care
less to do away with them than to make a reputation with the unthinking of
standing in extreme opposition to them. But this is precisely what the present
Congress has done. Instead of enacting antitrust laws which were either so
vague or so sweeping as completely to defeat their own objects, it has given
us an interstate commerce law which will enable us to exercise m thorough
fashion a supervision over the common carriers of this country, so as, while
scrupulously safeguarding their proper interests, to prevent them from
charging excessive rates, to prevent their favoring one man at the expense of
another, and especially a strong man at the expense of a weak man; and to
require them to be fully accountable to the public for the service which to
their own profit they render the public. The previous Congress, by the
enactment of the Elkins law and by the creation of the Department of Com-
merce and Labor, includmg the Bureau of Corporations, had enabled us to
take great strides in advance along the path of thus bringing the use of
wealth in business under the supervision and regulation of the national gov-
ernment, — for m actual practice it has proved a sham and pretense to say
that the several States can thus supervise and regulate it. The strides taken
by the present Congress have been even longer in the right direction. The
enactment of the pure food bill and the passage of the bill which rendered
effective the control of the government over the meat-packing industries are
really along the same general line as the passage of the interstate commerce
law, and are second only to it in importance.

Perhaps the peculiar merit of these laws is best shown by the fact that
while they have aroused the deepest anger of the reactionaries, of the men
who make a fetish of wealth, they have not satisfied the unwise extremists;
and the present Congress in achieving this merit has acted in the exact spirit
of Abraham Lincoln, who was never to be frightened out of going forward
by the cries of those who feared progress, nor yet to be hurried into a
precipitate advance by the demands of the crude-thinking, though often
well-meaning, men who are not accustomed soberly to distinguish between
phrase-making and action. To the men who come in the latter category
all we need say is to bid them possess their souls in peace. They have ad-
vocated action; but we have taken action; and the fact that this action has
been sober and temperate has been in no small degree the cause of its far-
reaching efficiency. To the former class — to the reactionaries, who seem to
fear that to deal in proper fashion with the abuses of property is somehow an
attack upon property — we would recall the words of Edmund Burke: “If

375

wealth is obedient and laborious in the service of virtue and public honor,
then, wealth is in its place and has its use. But if this order is changed and
honor is to be sacrificed to the conservation of riches, riches, which have
neither eyes nor hands nor anything truly vital in them, can not long survive
the well being of . . . their legitimate masters ... If we command our
wealth we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us we are poor
indeed.”

In addition to thus dealing with the proper control of capitalistic wealth,
Congress has also taken important steps in securing to the wageworkers
certain great rights. At the session that has just closed an employers’ liability
law 1 was enacted which puts the national government in its proper place as
regards such legislation. An eight-hour law was already on the statute books,
but as is almost inevitable with such laws, there has at first been great con-
fusion as to whose duty it was among the different public officials to enforce
it. This confusion has now been remedied and the law is in process of
thorough enforcement. If this enforcement demonstrates the need of ad-
ditional legislation to make this eight-hour law effective, I shall ask for such
legislation. I may add that next year I shall ask Congress to put in the perma-
nent form of law the provision I have made by executive order for securing
to the wageworkers under the government half-holidays during the summer
months, just as regular holidays are now secured by law for the salaried
clerical workers in the classified service. No Congress has ever more clearly
shown its practical appreciation of the fact that the welfare of the wage-
workers, and the welfare of the tillers of the soil, were the real basis of the
welfare of the nation as a whole. We will do everything that can be done to
further the interests of the farmer and the wageworker, and this declaration
is subject only to one reservation — which is, that for no man, and no body
of men, will we do anything that is wrong. Our constant aim is to do justice
to every man, and to treat each man as by his own actions he shows that he
deserves to be treated. We favor the organization of labor, as we favor the
organization of capital; but on condition that organized labor and organized
capital alike act m a spirit of justice and fair dealing, and with due regard to
both the letter and the spirit of the law. We heartily favor trades-unions, and
we recognize in them, as in corporations, when properly conducted, indis-
pensable instruments in' the economic life of the present day; but where
either type of organization is guilty of abuse, we do not propose to weaken
the remedial powers of the Government to deal with such abuse. We are
anxious to help, alike by law and by executive action, so far as in our power
lies, every honest man, every right-dealing labor union, and, for the matter
of that, every right-dealing corporation. But, as a corollary to this, we intend

1 This law, championed particularly by La Follette in the Senate, defined the Lability

of common carriers engaged m interstate or territorial commerce for injuries sus-
tained by their employees Roosevelt had several times asked Congress to pass such

a measure.

376

fearlessly and resolutely to uphold the law, and to strengthen it, so that we
can put down wrong, whether done by rich or poor; if done by the most
powerful corporation or the most influential labor union, just as much as if
done by the humblest and least influential individual in the land. The fact
that we heartily recognize an organization or a kind of organization as useful
will not prevent our taking action to control it or to prevent its committing
abuses when it uses m wrong fashion the power which organization confers.

The enactment into law of the bill removing the tax on alcohol used in
the arts will ultimately be of marked benefit to us in more ways than one. It
shows likewise the entire willingness of those responsible for the handling of
the present Congress to alter our revenue system, whether derived by taxation
on imports or internal taxation, whenever it is necessary so to do.

We stand unequivocally for a protective tariff, and we feel that the
phenomenal industrial prosperity which we are now enjoying is not lightly
to be jeoparded; for it would be to the last degree foolish to secure here and
there a small benefit at the cost of general business depression. But when-
ever a given rate or schedule becomes evidently disadvantageous to the
nation, because of the changes which go on from year to year in our con-
ditions, and where it is feasible to change this rate or schedule without too
much dislocation of the system, it will be done; while a general revision of
the rates and schedules will be undertaken whenever it shall appear to the
sober business sense of our people that on the whole the benefits to be
derived from making such changes will outweigh the disadvantages, that is,
when the revision will do more good than harm. Let me add one word of
caution, however. The question of revising the tariff stands wholly apart
from the question of dealing with the so-called “trust s” — that is, with the
control of monopolies and with the supervision of great wealth in business,
especially in corporate form. The only way in which it is possible to deal
with these trusts and monopolies and this great corporate wealth is by action
along the line of the laws enacted by the present Congress and its immediate
predecessor. The cry that the problem can be met by any changes in the
tariff represents, whether consciously or unconsciously, an effort to divert
the public attention from the only method of taking effective action.

1 shall not pretend to enumerate all the good measures of less importance
which the present Congress has enacted into law, although some of these
measures, as for instance the consular bill 2 and the naturalization bill are of
wide-reaching effect. I have said enough to show why, in my judgment, you
and your colleagues are entitled to the good wishes of all those American
citizens who believe that there are real evils in our industrial and economic
system, and that these evils can be effectively grappled with, not by loose

2 The consular reorganization bill passed by the 59th Congress only partially ful-
filled the recommendations of Secretary Root Its most important provisions were
those establishing an annual inspection of all consulates and substituting salaries for
fees For an excellent account of the measure in relation to Root’s over-all reorgani-
zation plans, see Jessup, Root, vol II, ch xxxi, especially p. 106.

377

declamation, but by resolute and intelligent legislation and executive action.
Sincerely yours

4014 * to Winston churchill Roosevelt Mss.

Private and personal Oyster Bay, August 18, 1906

My dear Churchill: Mrs Roosevelt and I have just finished Collision / and
we like it so much that I must write you a line to tell you so. She, of course,
was appealed to by it most from the standpoint of the story. My interest in
it was even greater because I think you were dealing with one of the real
and great abuses of this generation. I do not know whether I abhor most
the wealthy corruptionist, or the sinister demagogue who tries to rise by
exciting, and appealing to, the evil passions of envy and jealousy and hatred
In the last analysis the two supplement one another. Sincerely yours

4015 * TO CHARLES ARTHUR STILLINGS Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, August 20, 1906

My dear Mr. Stillings: I have very great sympathy with the cause of spell-
ing reform, though I know that like other practical reforms it is necessary
to go slow and feel one’s way. Will you do me the favor to write to Mr.
Brander Matthews, of New York, and get from him the pamphlet which the
association has issued giving the changes which they immediately recom-
mend? I understand that one or two magazines have already adopted these
changes. Then will you see that all Government publications, including the
President’s messages, are spelt in accordance with that plan? 1 Sincerely
yours

1 Churchill in 1906 published Comston, his study of New Hampshire politics. He
was, in the same year, an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican gubernatorial
nomination

1 Roosevelt supplemented this letter to the government prmter with an official order,
on August 27, directing the use of simplified spelling in government publications.
His efforts m behalf of simplicity were unavailing. The Supreme Court disregarded
his recommendations, while the House of Representatives, after receiving the Presi-
dent’s annual message of 1906 m the new orthography, passed a resolution forbidding
any departures from standard spelling in publications authorized by law. Accepting,
of necessity, this defeat the President contmued the experiment m his own corre-
spondence. In the meantime American journalists and wits had found in Mr
Roosevelt’s innovation a source of endless rather uninteresting copy of which the
following by “Marse Henry” Watterson is unhappily typical “Nuthing escapes
Mr Rucevelt No subject is tu hi fr him to takl, nor tu lo for him to notis . He
now assales the English langgwidg . . . and will reform the spelling in a way tu
soot himself” Similar quotations, along with an extended discussion of the whole
question, appear in Mark Sullivan, Our Times , III, 162-190.

378

40 1 6 • TO JOHN COIT SPOONER

Personal

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, August 20, 1906

My dear Senator Spooner : Naturally it is with extreme reluctance that I send
you the enclosed letter from Commissioner Leupp. I have never known any
Government official more anxious than Leupp to avoid such action as he has
here been compelled to take. He at one time actually went over with me the
proposition of suspending your brother as Superintendent of the Indian
Warehouse and “carrying him on the salary list as a dead weight.” He has
given him every chance to reform. He writes me now that he cannot accept
any promise of his to change his course, and that he has not moved until he
was absolutely sure that the Superintendent would never be anything else
than what he is. He has talked over this matter a number of times and written
to me about it several times. In his last letter he closes with the statement that
the Superintendent has been given his abundant day of grace, and that he
(Leupp) has reached the last limit of long-endured patience.

Now, my dear Senator, this letter is only less «painful» for me to write
than it will be for you to receive, and yet I have no alternative save to ask
you whether you will request your brother to resign or whether I shall do
so. He will have to leave the service. If you prefer for me to ask him, I will
of course make the request; but if you think it would be easier for him or
easier for you that you should ask him, then go ahead and do it. Let me
know what you decide.

With great regret and best wishes, believe me, Sincerely yours

4017 • TO CHARLES PATRICK NEILL Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, August 21, 1906

My dear Commissioner Neill : I have read and reread your report on the
enforcement of the eight-hour law. I thank you for it, and for the spirit in
which you have gone into the matter. What you say gives me great concern.
I quite understand why the labor people should have a very bitter feeling
about the way this law has been disregarded. The antagonism to it, as shown
by the action of the grand juries which you quote, is evidently not confined
to the Government officials. But my dear Commissioner, I am bound to see
that this law is absolutely enforced, and I will go to any requisite length in
order to secure its proper enforcement. I shall ask you to continue at this
work and make it your special business to look into this matter until we get
Government officials, contractors, and grand juries alike awake to the fact
that it is a real law, which is to be enforced as any other law is enforced.

I understand from what you say that in the War and Navy Departments

379

under which the bulk of the work comes there is now an honest and intelli-
gent effort being made to enforce the law. Will you please draw up for me
orders, which I shall send to all the Government departments, requiring them
to instruct their representatives on all public works to report every instance
in which contractors require their men to work over eight hours a day*
These reports then to be forwarded to the Department of Justice, and from
thence to the proper district attorneys, with directions to enforce com-
pliance with the law. Could I not go further than this? Could I not refuse
to receive work for the Government if convinced that the eight-hour law
has been violated?

Will you also draw up what you regard as a suitable order to be issued m
order to secure uniform practice in calling the attention of bidders on con-
tracts to the statutes which concern them. Apparently the Reclamation
Service has done better than any other in this regard.

Now there is another point to which I should like attention paid. Will
you give me the names of the two district attorneys who, in your judgment,
were lax or indifferent in their efforts to secure convictions for violations of
the law? I shall take whatever action may be necessary against them. Will
you also give me the names of the engineers of the War Department who
practically argued against the Government in the third case, stating that it
came within the extraordinary emergency clause? I shall require of them a
full explanation and justification of their conduct.

Can you suggest to me anything additional that I can do to insure the
proper enforcement of the law* Smcerely yours

4018 • TO CHARLES ARTHUR STILLINGS Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Oyster Bay, August 21, 1906

Quietly and unofficially it might be well for you to draw the attention
of your subordinates to the extreme seriousness of their going on any strike. 1
I do not want to make a horseback judgment but you are authorized to tell
them definitely that I would not even consider, or permit you to consider,
the question of attending to any of their grievances if they went on a strike
unless they immediately resumed work, and that in all probability after giv-
ing them one warning to resume work I would then not permit the reinstate-
ment of any man who continued on strike after such warning was given I
will not tolerate any action of this kind by employees in the Government
service. Of course I would prefer that you settle the matter quietly and
without trouble, but they may as well definitely understand that if they
persist in making trouble the consequences will be on their own heads.

1 Roosevelt was concerned that employees of the Government Printing Office
would follow the example of typographical unions m many parts of the country
then striking for an eight-hour day. They did not.

3 80

4019 • TO GIFFORD PINCHOT

Roosevelt Mss *
Oyster Bay, August 24, 1906

My dear Mr. Pinchot : Through you let me extend my heartiest congratula-
tions and good wishes to those assembled to forward the cause of reclamation
and irrigation . 1

Operations under the Reclamation Act, which I signed on June 17, 1902,
have been carried on energetically during the four years since that date.
The Reclamation Service, consisting of over 400 skilled engineers and ex-
perts in various lines, has been organized, and it is now handling the work
with rapidity and effectiveness. Construction is already well advanced on
twenty-three great enterprises in the arid States and Territories. Over 1,000,-
000 acres of land have been laid out for irrigation, and of this 200,000 acres
are now under ditch; 800 miles of canals and ditches and 30,000 feet of
tunnel have been completed; and 16,000,000 cubic yards of earth and 3,000,-
000 cubic yards of rock have been moved. Detailed topographic surveys have
been extended over 10,000 square miles of country within which the reclama-
tion work is located and 20,000 miles of level lines have been run. Three
hundred buildings, including offices and sleeping quarters for workmen, have
been erected by the Reclamation Service, and about an equal number by
the contractors Over 10,000 men and about 5,000 horses are at present
employed.

The period of general surveys and examinations for projects is past. Effort
is now concentrated on getting the water upon a sufficient area of irrigable
land in each project to put it on a revenue-producing basis. To bring all the
projects to this point will require upwards of $40,000,000, which amount, it
is estimated, will be available from the receipts from the disposal of public
lands for the years 1901-1908.

We may well congratulate ourselves upon the rapid progress already
made, and rejoice that the infancy of the work has been safely passed. But
we must not forget that there are dangers and difficulties still ahead, and
that only unbroken vigilance, efficiency, integrity, and good sense will suffice
to prevent disaster. There is now no question as to where the work shall be
done, how it shall be done, or the precise way in which the expenditures
shall be made. All that is settled. There remains, however, the critical ques-
tion of how best to utilize the reclaimed lands by putting them into the
hands of actual cultivators and homemakers, who will return the original
outlay in annual installments paid back into the reclamation fund; the ques-
tion of seeing that the lands are used for homes, and not for purposes of
speculation or for the building up of large fortunes.

This question is by no means simple. It is easy to make plans and spend
money. During the time when the Government is making a great investment
like tins, the men in charge are praised and the rapid progress is commended.

1 An irrigation congress was being held at Boise, Idaho.

381

But when the time comes for the Government to demand the refund of the
investment under the terms of the law, then the law itself will be put to the
test, and the quality of its administration will appear.

The pressing danger just now springs from the desire of nearly every man
to get and hold as much land as he can, whether he can handle it profitably or
not, and whether or not it is for the interest of the community that he should
have it. The prosperity of the present irrigated areas came from the sub-
division of the land and the consequent intensive cultivation. With an ade-
quate supply of water, a farm of five acres in some parts of the arid West, or
of forty acres elsewhere, is as large as may be successfully tilled by one
family. When, therefore, a man attempts to hold 150 acres of land com-
pletely irrigated by Government works, he is preventing others from ac-
quiring a home, and is actually keeping down the population of his State.

Speculation in lands reclaimed by the Government must be checked at
whatever cost. The object of the Reclamation Act is not to make money, but
to make homes. Therefore, the requirement of the Reclamation Act that the
size of the farm unit shall be limited in each region to the area which will
comfortably support one family must be enforced in letter and in spirit.
This does not mean that the farm unit should be sufficient for the present
family with its future grown children and grandchildren, but rather that dur-
ing the ten years of payment the area assigned for each family shall be
sufficient to support it. When once the farms have been fully tilled by free-
holders, little danger of land monopoly will remain.

This great meeting of practical irrigators should give particular attention
to this problem and others of the same kind. You should, and I doubt not
that you will, give your effectual support to the officers of the Government
in making the Reclamation law successful in all respects, and particularly in
getting back the original investment, so that the money may be used again
and again in the completion of other projects and thus in the general ex-
tension of prosperity in the West. Until it has been proved that this great
investment of $40,000,000 in irrigation made by the Government will be
returning to the Treasury, it is useless to expect that the people of the coun-
try will consider direct appropriations for the work. Let us give the Reclama-
tion Service a chance to utilize the present investment a second time before
discussing such increase. I look forward with great confidence to the result.

By the side of the Reclamation Service there has grown up another
service of not less interest and value to you of the West. This is the Forest
Service, which was created when the charge of the forest reserves was trans-
ferred from the Interior Department to the Department of Agriculture. The
forest policy of the administration, which the Forest Service is engaged in
carrying out, is based, as I have often said, on the vigorous purpose to make
every resource of the forest reserves contribute in the highest degree to the
permanent prosperity of the people who depend upon them. If ever the time
should come when the western forests are destroyed, there will disappear

382

with them the prosperity of the stockman, the miner, the lumberman and the
railroads, and, most important of all, the small ranchman who cultivates his
own land. I know that you are with me in the intention to preserve the tim-
ber, the water, and the grass by using them fully, but wisely and conserva-
tively. We propose to do this through the freest and most cordial co-opera-
tion between the Government and every man who is in sympathy with this
policy, the wisdom of which no man who knows the facts can for a moment
doubt.

It is now less than two years since the Forest Service was established. It
had a great task before it, — to create or reorganize the Service on a hundred
forest reserves and to ascertain and meet the very different local conditions
and local needs all over the West. This task is not finished, and of course it
could not have been finished in so short a time. But the work has been carried
forward with energy and intelligence, and enough has been done to show
how our forest policy is working out.

The result of first importance to you as irrigators is this: The Forest Serv-
ice has proved that forest fires can be controlled, by controlling them. Only
one-tenth of one per cent of the area of the forest reserves was burned over
in 1905. This achievement was due both to the Forest Service and to the
effective assistance of settlers and others in and near the reserves. Everything
the Government has ever spent upon its forest work is a small price to pay
for the knowledge that the streams which make your prosperity can be and
are being freed from the ever-present threat of forest fires.

The long-standing and formerly bitter differences between the stockmen
and the forest officers are nearly all settled. Those which remain are in
process of settlement. Hearty co-operation exists almost everywhere between
the officers of the Forest Service and the local associations of stockmen, who
are appointing advisory committees which are systematically consulted by
the Forest Service on all questions m which they are concerned. This most
satisfactory condition of mutual help will be as welcome to you as it is to
the Administration and to the stockmen. To the stockmen it means more,
and more certain, grass; to you, because of the better protection and wiser
use of the range, it means steadier stream-flow and more water.

The sales of forest reserve timber to settlers, miners, lumbermen and
other users are increasing very rapidly, and in that way also the reserves are
successfully meeting a growing need.

Lands in the forest reserves that are more valuable for agriculture than
for forest purposes are being opened to settlement and entry as fast as their
agricultural character can be ascertained There is therefore no longer excuse
for saying that the reserves retard the legitimate settlement and development
of the country. On the contrary, they promote and sustain that development,
and they will do so in no way more powerfully than through their direct
contributions to the schools and roads. Ten per cent of all the money re-
ceived from the forest reserves goes to the States for the use of the counties in

383

which the reserves lie, to be used for schools and roads. The amount of this
contribution is nearly $70,000 for the first year. It will grow steadily larger,
and will form a certain and permanent source of mcome, which would not
have been the case with the taxes whose place it takes.

Finally, a body of intelligent, practical, well-trained men, citizens of the
West, is being built up — men in whose hands the public interests, including
your own, are and will be safe.

All these results are good; but they have not been achieved by the Forest
Service alone. On the contrary, they represent also the needs and suggestions
of the people of the whole West. They embody constant changes and ad-
justments to meet these suggestions and needs. The forest policy of the Gov-
ernment in the West has now become what the West desired it to be. It is a
national policy, wider than the boundaries of any State, and larger than
the interests of any single industry. Of course it cannot give any set of men
exactly what they would choose. Undoubtedly the irrigator would often like
to have less stock on his watersheds, while the stockman wants more. The
lumberman would like to cut more timber, the settler and the miner would
often like him to cut less The county authorities want to see more money
coming in for schools and roads, while the lumberman and stockman object
to the rise in value of timber and grass. But the interests of the people as a
whole are, I repeat, safe m the hands of the Forest Service.

By keeping the public forests in the public hands our forest policy substi-
tutes the good of the whole people for the profits of the privileged few. With
that result none will quarrel except the men who are losing the chance of
personal profit at the public expense

Our western forest policy is based upon meeting the wishes of the best
public sentiment of the whole West It proposes to create new reserves
wherever forest lands still vacant are found in the public domain, and to give
the reserves already made the highest possible usefulness to all the people. So
far our promises to the people m regard to it have all been made good, and I
have faith that this policy will be carried to successful completion, because
I believe that the people of the West are behind it. Sincerely yours

4020 • TO FRED CRAYTON AINSWORTH Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, August 24, 1906

Because of facts enumerated in your telegram of August twenty-fourth I
entirely approve of the action you 1 propose to take. Let the battalion take
the accused men with it to San Antonio and turn them over to the military
authorities there, to be confined and guarded until further direction from me.

1 Major General Fred Crayton Ainsworth, at this time military secretary of the
Army and, m the temporary absence of his civilian superiors, Acting Secretary of
War

384

Meanwhile the battalion will proceed to Fort Reno immediately on deliver-
ing prisoners at San Antonio. Act immediately. 2

4021 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 27, 1906

Dear Will: Don’t you think you ought to forward that letter of Anas (or a
copy of it rather) to Root, so that he can look at it while he is on the Isth-
mus? 1 Stevens is an admirable man. He can render himself worse than value-
less in just one way, and that is by thinking himself indispensable, and there-
fore that he does not have to regard public opinion at home as represented in
Congress, or public opinion on the Isthmus as represented in the Government
of Panama. I guess it is a mighty good thing that you and I are going down to
the Isthmus. By the way, if Mrs. Taft goes with you wouldn’t you and she
have better accommodations if you went on the other battleship, whichever
it is * I have an idea that we had best keep the party down to you and myself,
our respective spouses, and Surgeon General Rixey if he wishes to go. Mrs.
Roosevelt will not take a maid, as both she and I think it would be inadvis-
able, and we can probably get a thoroly competent man among the stewards,
possibly taking one from the Sylph , or Mayflower \ who would do whatever
was necessary for us. I do not think that on the battleships there should be any
person with us whom it is possible by any chance to avoid taking with us,
and that is one reason why I am particularly glad that Senator Millard
did not accept. The reporters and so forth must go to the Isthmus on their
own responsibility. We will show them every courtesy while we are at
Panama. No press representative is to go on the ship. We will arrange that
on each ship some officer shall send them wireless messages whenever we
are in communication with a wireless station.

1 wish you would tell Ainsworth, or whoever is acting for you in
Washington, that I am very much discontented with the pedantry, red tape,
and hidebound lack of initiative and common sense shown by the Department

2 On the night of August 14 had occurred the celebrated incident at Brownsville,
Texas, the alleged shooting by Negro troops of white citizens. Roosevelt, after
receiving a report of the affair, approved the decision of the officers on the spot
to remove the Negro troops In November, following further investigation, the
President ordered the discharge of the three companies involved. It was only then
that the episode became the focus for continuing, explosive controversy. At the
center of the discussion, leading the opposition to Roosevelt’s decision, was Senator
Foraker of Ohio. There are many secondary accounts of the Brownsville affair.
Among those which are brief and* readily accessible, Pringle's Roosevelt and Taft
and Walter’s Foraker generally follow the view expressed in Foraker’s memoirs
Roosevelt said nothing of the incident m his Autobiography , but his letters in
November and December 1906 and in 1907 make his opinion clear The official
reports on Brou nsville were printed m Senate Document , 59 Cong., 2 sess , no. 1 55,
and Seitate Document, 60 Cong , 1 sess , no 389.

1 Ricardo Arias was Panama’s Secretary of Government and Foreign Relations. Root
visited the Isthmus m September on the return from his Latin American trip.

385

in dealing with me in reference to the Cuban Government’s request for an
advance of cartridges. No! Don’t tell him! I’ve straightened matters myself.

1 enclose another letter from Fleming, which please return when you
have read it. Sincerely yours

[. Handwritten ] P.S This is my first spelling reform letter!

40 2 2 TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Private and confidential Oyster Bay, August 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary : After some hesitation I have concluded to send you
the enclosed two letters from Congressman Sherman and Mr. Fulton, a
Republican County Committee chairman in the Indian Territory. I do not
know anything about the Cherokee payment which it is alleged has caused
such dissatisfaction among the Cherokees. I should like much if you would
give me a statement about it. 1 I have of course received a great many com-
plaints as to the damage being done politically by the action of the Interior
Department in Oklahoma and Indian Territory, both in the matter of the
investigation of Governor Frantz, of the attacks on District Attorney
Embry, 2 and of the feeling by the Indians that they have been treated with
harshness by the Department; and the National Republican Committee are
inclined to believe that the feeling thus caused, no matter how ill-founded,
will cost us the loss of the delegation in Congress from the new State. I have
not taken this up with you because I of course believe that no matter how
disastrous to the administration politically, we cannot for a moment enter-
tain any other thought than to do exact and equal justice, and if a given
course of conduct is right it must be followed, and if a given official is cor-
rupt or incompetent he must be punished, no matter what party disaster is
brought about thereby. But it is of course true that we do not wish either
wantonly or foolishly to invite such disaster. I need hardly say that the
election of a Democratic House this fall will mean a rebuke to the entire ad-
ministration, including the Interior Department just as much as any other
department, and will mean that for the last half of my administration I will
not only be unable to continue to make such advances along the path of
social and economic reform as we have made last session, but will see every
department under me, including doubtless the Interior Department, harassed
in every way by a Democratic majority anxious simply to make capital
on the eve of a presidential election. It was for this reason that I have so
regretted the unfortunate publication of the correspondence of you and
Governor Higgins with me. This publication has served no useful purpose
whatever, but has merely furnished to the Democratic opponents of the ad-
ministration in New York a weapon wherewith to attack the Republican

1 The Indian Appropriation Act of June 1906 provided over one million dollars for

the payment or Cherokee claims at 5 per cent interest.

2 John Embry, United States district attorney at Guthrie, Oklahoma.

386

party. I call your attention to the fact that the letter of Governor Higgins
was to me and that your answer was to me. Under such circumstances, my
dear Mr. Secretary, I trust you will see how unfortunate — it is the mildest
word — it was that without any authorization by me you should have
published these letters. I am continually receiving letters of protest from ac-
quaintances, who write with a freedom which it would be impossible to use
if they believed their letters would be published, and where these refer to
departmental matters I simply turn them over bodily to the appropriate Cabi-
net officer for comment. If the Cabinet officer, without consultation or
authorization by me, publishes the correspondent’s letter and his . . . letter
to me in response, it renders it impossible for me to continue to tr^at him in
such matters in the confidential manner which it is so eminently desirable
should obtain between the President and the members of his Cabinet.

This letter is to be regarded as private and confidential. I knew Mr.
Higgins well while I was Governor and have followed his career closely
since, and while I am not as close to him as I am to you and other members
of my Cabinet, still I am fairly close to him. I have the same faith in his
honesty and uprightness, my dear Mr. Secretary, as I have in your honesty
and uprightness. Any reflections by him on you I so completely disregarded
that I doubt if I even remembered them when I sent his letter on to you;
and just as I should never dream of thinking twice of reflections by him or
anyone else upon your purposes and intentions, so I should pay no heed to
the reflections of anyone upon Mr. Higgins’ honesty of purpose. The unwar-
ranted publication of his letter and your letter to me has on the one hand
given encouragement to the men who for party purposes and with the
object of breaking down the Republican party and this administration are
striving to blacken Higgins’ character, and on the other hand it has given to
many sincere Republicans the of course entirely unwarranted belief that
either the administration itself or you personally are anxious to secure Re-
publican disaster at the polls in New York State this year. Of course Higgins
may not be a candidate for Governor, and what I say is wholly without
reference to whether I shall in the end feel that he ought or ought not to be
renominated for Governor — a point as to which my mind has remained
open; but all of this does not alter the extreme undesirability of having had
the letters made public, and this aside from the fact that no such letter should
ever be made public without my express authorization . 3

3 Hitchcock had included the Higgins correspondence m the publication of the
hearings on oil and gas lands in Oklahoma and Indian Territories

In his letter to Roosevelt, written on May io, 1906, Higgins had upheld Bams-
dall’s integrity and methods of payment for oil and gas nghts. The governor held,
in fact, that Hitchcock’s rulings were “governed more by prejudice against indi-
viduals than by practical knowledge of the subject m hand.” The Secretary also
published his letter of May 12 to Roosevelt, answering Higgins’ claims.

This correspondence was used in 1908 by the Democrats, who falsely claimed
that Roosevelt had agreed with Higgins and ordered Hitchcock to grant a permit to
Bamsdall, see No. 4012.

387

As I am continually answering many such queries, written or spoken, as
that in the enclosed letter from Sherman, will you kindly give me the facts
m this case?

I was much interested in all the matter you enclosed me in connection
with the oil lease business. Let me repeat, however, (a position in which I
am sure you entirely sympathize) that the Government must keep such
control as will enable us to secure justice without relying merely upon com-
petition between the Standard Oil Company and its opponents. In your
letter to the editor of the Bartlesville Daily Enterprise you urge the inde-
pendent operators to unitedly build such pipe lines and tanks as will enable
them to become independent of the Standard Oil Company and its different
subsidiary companies; but if such a combination of the independent operators
took place and became successful, there would always be the chance of its
combining with the Standard Oil Company in some fashion at the expense of
outsiders. Therefore I would not regard any such combination as that you
proposed the independent operators should go into, as being even to a slight
degree satisfactory as a substitute for keeping in the hands of the Govern-
ment the power by the exercise of proper supervision and control to see that
justice is done by all the companies, whether standard or independent I
return the enclosures, as you request.

I am also much interested in the letter of Colonel Butler, which I enclose.
It seems to me that he pretty thoroly establishes his case, but I shall of
course keep an entirely open mind on the subject until I hear from you, tho
I gather that Butler’s views are substantially those that you hold.

With regards to Mrs. Hitchcock. Very sincerely yours

4023 • TO ALEXANDER LAMBERT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 27, 1906

Dear Alex: What you tell me about Jerome’s plan is interesting and charac-
teristic. Jerome has some good qualities and he now and then renders good
service, but down at bottom he is a thoropaced faker. He knows perfectly
well that he lies when he says I am trying to placate Odell with a view to
the senatorship. If I had announced that I was a candidate for another
term for the presidency, he would be howling that my continuing as I have
always continued to act as regards New York politics was due to my desire
to secure a renomination. As I insist that I am not a candidate, he announces
that it is because I desire the senatorship that I am following this course.
He knows he is lying, and there is nothing more to be said about it

In the same way, he knows he is lying in what he says about Hughes. If
Hughes were to run I do not believe that for a moment he would be hood-
winked by Odell any more than I was hoodwinked by him when I was a
candidate for governor. Jerome knows this, too. But Jerome knows he would
be a formidable competitor, and he thinks that this particular kind of lying

388

slander will help him, Jerome. Hughes' little finger is thicker than Jerome’s
loins. Hughes is a real man and Jerome is a faker, and Jerome has the hatred
of the faker for the real man.

I have done everything I can to help Parsons and to help Wadsworth,
my difficulty with Wadsworth being greatly enhanced by the extreme folly
of Wadsworth’s papa. If I should turn in and help Parsons, Wadsworth and
Company by the use of the offices, in the way that Jerome and his friends
now profess to desire, they would be the very first people to split the air with
their yells over my iniquity, and what is more, they would have justification.
Incidentally, the invariable experience of the past shows that the President
who interferes in such a w r ay does no good to the man on whose behalf he
interferes, save when the circumstances are altogether exceptional. If these
exceptional circumstances arise, I shall interfere without hesitation. Ever
yours

4024 • TO CHARLES ARTHUR STILLINGS Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, August 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Stillings: I enclose herewith copies of certain circulars of the
Simplified Spelling Board, which can be obtained free from the Board at No.
1 Madison Avenue, New York City. Please hereafter direct that in all Govern-
ment publications of the executive departments the three hundred words
enumerated in Circular No. 5 shall be spelled as therein set forth. If anyone
asks the reason for the action, refer him to Circulars 3, 4 and 6 as issued by
the Simplified Spelling Board. Most of the criticism of the proposed step is
evidently made in entire ignorance of what the step is, no less than in entire
ignorance of the very moderate and common-sense views as to the purposes
to be achieved, which views are so excellently set forth in the circulars to
which I have referred. There is not the slightest intention to do anything
revolutionary or initiate any far-reaching policy. The purpose simply is for
the Government, instead of lagging behind popular sentiment, to advance
abreast of it and at the same time abreast of the view’s of the ablest and
most practical educators of our time as well as the most profound
scholars — men of the stamp of Professor Lounsbury. If the slight changes
in the spelling of the three hundred words proposed wholly or par-
tially meet popular approval, then the changes w T ill become permanent
without any reference to what public officials or individual private citizens
may feel; if they do not ultimately meet with popular approval they will be
dropt, and that is all there is about it. They represent nothing in the world
but a very slight extension of the unconscious movement which has made
agricultural implement makers and farmers write “plow” instead of “plough”;
w 7 hich has made most Americans write “honor” without the somewhat
absurd, superfluous “u”; and which is even now making people write
“program” without the “me” — just as all people who speak English now

389

write “bat,” “set,” “dim,” “sum,” and “fish,” instead of the Elizabethan
“batte,” “sette,” “dimme,” “summe,” and “fysshe”; which makes us write
“public,” “almanac,” “era,” “fantasy,” and “wagon,” instead of the “publick,”
“almanack,” “aera ” “phantasy,” and “waggon” of our great-grandfathers. It
is not an attack on the language of Shakespeare and Milton, because it is in
some instances a going back to the forms they used, and in others merely
the extension of changes which, as regards other words, have taken place
since their time. It is not an attempt to do anything far-reaching or sudden
or violent; or indeed anything very great at all. It is merely an attempt to cast
what slight weight can properly be cast on the side of the popular forces
which are endeavoring to make our spelling a little less foolish and fantastic.
Sincerely yours

4025 • TO CHARLES PAYSON GURLEY SCOTT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 28, 1906

My dear Mr . Scott: 1 In your letter you have exprest just what I hope to ac-
complish; that is, to get the attention of the people to the proposed reform,
and to give such encouragement as will enable scholars and educators
to handle it with the freedom of thought and action which they use toward
commerce, literature, biology, and pretty much all other subjects of human
thought. I have directed the use of the simplified spelling in the three hundred
words recommended by the Board. I think I shall wait for a few months
before giving a further order of the kind suggested by you to the Public
Printer. Sincerely yours

4026 * TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, August 28, 1906

Dear Moody: I have your letter of the 27th. If you can wait until after
election, I should prefer it. 1 «If you go» before election a considerable body
of people will say that I am kicking you out of the Cabinet because I am
discontented with your handling of the trust question, and a much larger
proportion, that you find yourself, in your honest, noble efforts to assail
the trusts, so hampered by my corrupt partiality for them that you have
flung your commission in my face, and that it is well known that you have
privately stated that the position has become intolerable for any honest man.
I do not know which of these two attitudes the Boston Herald , for instance,
would take, but it would certainly take one, and probably both. But of
course if you feel you ought to make your statement public, then do so.

It was a real comfort having you here even for a mght and enabled me

1 Charles Payson Gurley Scott, long-time secretary of the Simplified Spelling Board

1 Moody, on whose appointment to the Supreme Court Roosevelt had not yet
decided, was planning to return to private life.

390

to orient myself, so to speak, on several different matters. Lord, how I hate
to have you go! Always yours

4027 • TO JAMES FRANKLIN BELL Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 1, 1906

My dea ? General Bell: I thank you not only for your interesting letter but
for the way you are steadily taking thought in advance. 1 The propositions
that you make represent the kind of proposition which makes it worth while
to have a Chief of Staff. Present my compliments to General Ainsworth,
show him this letter, and he will follow out the suggestions that you have
made in your letter — that is, get the three officers, including Major Ladd
and Captain Aultman over to Cuba in just the way you propose, President
Palma’s assent of course having been obtained. 2 You need not give me any
further details, as I am so entirely in accord with your purposes and methods

1 Brigadier General James Franklin Bell, since April 1906 Chief of Staff of the
United States Army, had worked out a system to send three divisions to Cuba if
the revolution which had begun there created a need for them. It proved unneces-
sary to dispatch a force of that size, but conditions on the island impelled Roosevelt
to order, under the terms of the Platt Amendment, American intervention and a
second American occupation.

Dissatisfaction with President Palma mounted after the election of December
1905, which his Moderate party had rigged m highhanded fashion “A real feeling
of injustice and outrage on the part of the less educated and poorer classes,” the
Cuban habit of insurrection, and the personal popularity of local Liberal leaders
turned dissatisfaction to revolt in August. Palma’s government, unable to control
the situation and unwilling to compromise with the rebels, requested American
intervention in early September. Roosevelt was reluctant to comply. Because of
the increasing threat to American lives and property and the obvious inability of
the Moderates to restore order, he sent a detachment of the fleet to Havana and
ordered Taft and Bacon to Cuba to attempt to re-establish peace. During their
mission the President resisted suggestions for further American action, but the
obduracy of the Liberals and the Moderates, preventing a permanent adjustment of
factional differences, persuaded him in late September to agree to the establishment
of a provisional government by the United States. All this was done peaceably. The
occupation, for a few weeks under Taft and thereafter under Charles E. Magoon,
lasted until January 1909, when the Americans withdrew.

Roosevelt’s opinions and decisions at each stage of the Cuban revolt, revealed
m the letters and cables of September and October 1906, printed below, provoked
criticism alike from those who opposed any action by the United States and from
those who urged the annexation of Cuba. The President’s policy clearly best served
the long-range as v T ell as the immediate interests of both nations. The most im-
portant documents pertaining to the Cuban revolution and American intervention are
m “Cuban’ Pacification,” Appendix E, Reports of the Secretary of War, House
Document , 59 Cong , 2 sess , no 2, and Foreign Relations , 1906, 454-494. There are
good secondary accounts m Fitzgibbon, Cuba , ch. v. Hill, Roosevelt and the Carib-
bean ch. iv, and Jessup, Rooty I, 531-540.

3 The officers mentioned were Captain Dwight Edward Aultman, a veteran of San
Juan, organizer of the Cuban artillery during the first occupation, after 1903 an
instructor in the Cuban artillery; and Major Eugene F. Ladd, treasurer of customs
at Havana during the first occupanon.

39 1

that I do not think it necessary for General Ainsworth and you to come to
Oyster Bay. Of course I should be glad to see you both if you deem that you
ought to come. Sincerely yours

4028 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 1, 1906

Dear Will : You and I and Mrs. Roosevelt, then, will be the only members of
our party. We will all be on one ship. Mr. Loeb is not going. He does not
want to go. I think anyhow we ought to keep the party down to the lowest
limit. You will have your servants, and we will take a steward from the
Sylph or Mayflower . Perhaps if we put the newspapermen on the other ship
I can then have Assistant Secretary Latta, from my office, go with them, and
in the event of an emergency on the Isthmus you and I could use him.

I doubt if Burrows fights Denison, and I think that I shall simply tell him
that I have concluded that Denison is the man to appoint. 1

As for your tariff speech, I have felt that you saved yourself by the
clause saying that you did not know when sentiment would crystallize . . .
naturally to bring about revision. 2 Of course a session that deals with the
tariff can probably do nothing else; and the vital factor in the situation is
this crystallization of sentiment. I do not believe that the sentiment in the
Republican party will crystallize so that it will be a possible matter to take
up the tariff prior to the Presidential election, but in this I may be
mistaken. In any event I am confident that by the time of the Presidential
election sentiment will so have crystallized that we shall have to announce that
there shall be tariff revision by the Republican party immediately after the
election. But I neither wish to split the Republican party, nor to seem to
promise something Congress would not do.

Before deciding what answer to make to Ross and his article in Collier's
Weekly / go over it carefully yourself and then, if you are willing, lay the
matter before me. I should doubt the expediency of writing a personal and
private communication to the Collier people m the matter. I should think an
entirely temperate letter to them, which could be printed and in which the
character of Ross is exposed and his statements taken up, would be better.
But this, again, can be taken up when I see you. Ever yours

1 Roosevelt changed his mind Not until 1910, and then by Taft, was Arthur Carter
Denison, Michigan lawyer, Republican, appointed a United States district judge

2 Taft, in Maine, had said “Speaking my individual opinion and for no one else,
I believe that, since the passage of the Dmgley Bill, there has been a change m the
business conditions of the country making it wise and just to revise the schedules
of the existing tariff ” He had added, however, that it was not clear “how soon the
feeling in favor of revision shall crystallize into action.”

* Herbert Ross, “The Other Side of the Shield,” Collier's, 37.22 (August 25, 1906), an
article criticizing Taft’s Philippine policy

392

4029 * TO JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN Roosevelt MSS.

Strictly private Oyster Bay, September 1, 1906

My dear Mr . Schurman: You have stated my views with the utmost insight 1
and I have taken the liberty of sending your letter to Herbert Parsons, who
has, in a spirit of loyalty to Higgins (whom I esteem as highly as you do),
combated the Hughes proposition. 1 Could you quietly tell Hughes at my
request that I wish he would not commit himself about the Governorship
until I get a chance to see him? Let this information meet him on his arrival.
With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4030 * TO AUGUSTUS PEABODY GARDNER Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, September 4, 1906

Dear Gussie: I have your letter of the 31st ultimo. I hope that the movement
of which you speak will have some effect. Almost all of the information I
have received has been to the effect that politically the movement to restrict
immigration did harm, but that it is good from the national standpoint, I am
sure; and I had one very interesting conversation with five priests, who I
found were in hearty sympathy with the movement, saying that they found
it impossible to keep in any relations with the church the mass of Catholic
immigrants, especially the Italians who were coming over, and that they very
earnestly wished the number could be diminished. I am mighty glad you are
doing what you can to help out those Congressmen who are m difficulty.

I am much concerned as to what you tell me of your fight with Schofield, 1
and I am rather surprised at Gompers’ attitude. I do not see how r he can attack
you and the other men for voting to take away the eight-hour restriction
about the laborers on the canal zone, when he is so very careful about
attacking me, tho I recommended and put thru the measure. And it cer-
tainly does seem incredible that anyone could be influenced by such stuff.
Good luck to you. Ever yours

4031 • TO CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, September 4, 1906

My dear Mr . Vice-President: I think it very important from the standpoint
of the party that you should accept the request of the Hamilton Club and of
President Brundage of the Cook County Court House at Chicago. There is
need that one of the prominent leaders of the Republican party should

1 Parsons, in. 1906 president of the New York Republican County Committee and
successful candidate for Congress, in spite of his early preference for Higgins took
an active part in the gubernatorial campaign after Hughes was nominated

1 George A Schofield, Ipswich Democrat, Gardner’s unsuccessful opponent m the
campaign of 1906

attend and make, on that occasion, a speech which will be noteworthy as
striking the key for the Republican cause m Illinois, and indeed around the
Mississippi Valley generally. I earnestly hope that you will find yourself
able to accept. Doubtless much judgment will have to be shown in making
the kind of speech that they desire on this particular occasion; but the most
effective political speeches are often those that are nominally not political at
all; and that you have the necessary tact and judgment I know well. Faith-
fully yours

4032 * to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Ray, September 4, 1906

Dear Elihu: It was good to get your letter and both Mrs. Roosevelt and I
were immensely amused at the translation from the Spanish newspaper,
including the awful warning with which it ended as to the trouble I would
get into if I did not come up to my duties in the matter of financial obligation.

I have just finished the naval review and it has been a thoro success. It was
by all odds the most formidable American fleet ever gathered together, and
I defy anyone with a spark of national pride in him not to feel moved at such
a sight. We had on the Dolphin and Mayflower , in addition to the Bacons,
the Grant La Farges, the Dunnes, and Connolly, 1 the man who wrote those
“Out of Gloucester” stories. I wanted both Dunne and Connolly to grow to
have a personal feeling for the navy — to get under the naval spell — because
I want them both to be our allies m keeping the people awake to what it
means to have such a navy and such officers and men as those who man it.

The political campaign has fairly opened. The Vermont elections take
place this week, and the Maine elections next. (Vermont has gone easily our
way) Taft will deliver a first-rate speech in Maine. I do not feel very
hopeful as yet about our carrying a majority of Congress this fall, which I
think very important, but I have been much encouraged by Bryan’s break-
down, I am far more hopeful than I was. Of course, if people really were
far-sighted, if they really grasped the situation, we should have a walk-over
in the Congressional elections, for this Congress has done admirably and the
Democrats have nothing whatever to offer, but the very fact that we have
done well may operate to our immediate disadvantage. I am immensely
amused that papers like the Times and Sun, for instance, which have spent
most of the last five years in holding me up as an enemy to prosperity, as
the foe of the business world, as a dangerous man, have now turned a somer-
sault and are indignantly denouncing Bryan for wanting to do anything to
disturb what they describe as the unparalleled prosperity which we are now

1 James Brendan Connolly, Olympic champion, Spanish War veteran, m 1912 Pro-
gressive candidate for Congress from Massachusetts, author of many volumes of sea

stones.

394

enjoying, and which they are careful to point out we have enjoyed for the
last five years.

Bryan, as I have said, has helped us, as he came a bad cropper in his much-
heralded great speech in New York at Madison Square Garden on his re-
turn from abroad. Everybody among the Democrats was prepared to be for
him, and it was felt to be, and really was, quite wonderful to see how he
seemed to have strengthened his hold, but tho a kindly, well-meaning man, he
is both shallow and a demagog, that is, he has no real insight into questions,
and he is so eager to bid for popularity that he commits himself to preposter-
ous positions. He had evidently been immensely impressed by just one side of
my career, that is, by the fact that in spite of being what is called radical on
certain matters, I had added to my popular strength. Apparently, he thought
that the way to oust me was to be far more radical, and accordingly he came
out for Government ownership of railways, and for the abolition of the right
of injunction in all labor cases, not to speak of advocating warfare on the
trusts by refusing to allow them to use the mails, by taking off the tariff on
all trust-made articles, and so forth and so forth — all of which combine with
exquisite nicety folly and viciousness. Of course he does not understand that
“radical” and “conservative” are really very loosely used words, and that
their value depends wholly upon the particular circumstances of each case.
It is necessary at times to be extremely radical and at times to be extremely
conservative; and no man in public life who has to deal with many different
questions can with wisdom avoid showing both qualities from time to time
as the conditions vary. It is just as it is with the surgeon. On occasions the
greatest praise that can be given a surgeon is that he has been bold and fearless
in going deeply with the knife, and Bryan’s theory is that in such cases a man
who wishes to gain more glory should cut so deeply as to cut out the patient’s
heart. Moreover, Bryan, having committed himself to the policy of the
Government ownership of railways, has been somewhat rattled by the
storm of protests and has tried to hedge, with the result of giving himself
an appearance of weakness. He is not as formidable as he was and his speech
has helped us in the pending campaign. However, he is by no means as dead
as the New York Democratic and independent papers like the Times , Sun
and Brooklyn Eagle wish to persuade themselves is the case.

In New York the political pot is boiling. Higgins, who is an absolutely
honest man and has made an excellent Governor, has nevertheless succeeded
in creating the ineradicable impression that he is a weak and vacillating man,
and in this crisis such a man is not desirable. I am inclined to think that
Hughes would be the strongest man we could nominate for Governor among
those immediately available, and this in spite of the fact that Odell and Platt
have been loudly (altho probably insincerely) announcing that they are in
favor of him. What can actually be accomplished I do not yet see. On the
Democratic side Hearst and Jerome are prominent candidates for the
Governorship, and each is threatening to run independently if the other is

nominated. Hearst of course appeals frankly to the spirit of unrest, and there
is, I believe, literally nothing at which he would stop in the way of adding
fuel to the fire of discontent, reasonable or unreasonable, innocent or fraught
with destruction to the whole body politic. Jerome I personally do not care
for. I think him rather cheap and a good deal of a faker. He has lost strength
among the rank and file. But he has a great deal of strength among the
educated and well-to-do classes, and some great financiers as well as some
men who stand high in mixt politics and business are very earnestly for him.
Roughly, the people who are behind him are exactly the people who were
behind Parker two years ago, and they hope to do with him what they tried
to do with Parker. They feel that if they can elect him as Governor this year
they will have an excellent chance to run him for the Presidency, and under
such circumstances they feel that they could do as was done with Parker —
that is, make a radical platform and trust to keeping the conservatives in
line by assuring them that Jerome was perfectly safe. Exactly as two years
ago they trusted that Parker’s high character and judicial temperament and
dignity and commanding appearance would convert good people to his side
and carry him thru, so now they trust that Jerome’s undoubted campaigning
ability, his aggressiveness, and the reputation in which he is held as a “fear-
less prosecutor” (a reputation largely faked) will put him thru.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. Root. I think your visit to Cartagena very
important. Don’t you think that Barrett has probably won his spurs and
should go to Brazil next year when Griscom goes to Russia?

I hope to receive news shortly that you have definitely made up your
mind to go to San Francisco. I think from every standpoint it will be ad-
mirable.

How has your constitution stood the sweet champagne of Our Sister
Republics* Ever yours

4033 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 4, 1906

Dear Cabot: I knew how strongly Moody felt about Lurton. I did not know
how you felt. I think you both are entirely in error. I say this frankly because
I know you want me to talk frankly. Nothing has been so strongly borne m
on me concerning lawyers on the bench as that the nominal politics of a man
has nothing to do with his actions on the bench. His real politics are all-im-
portant. . . . , Holmes should have been an ideal man on the bench. As a
matter of fact he has been a bitter disappointment, not because of any one
decision but because of his general attitude. In Lurton’s case, Taft and Day,
his two former associates, are very desirous of having him on. He is right on
the negro question; he is right on the power of the Federal Government, he
is right on the insular business; he is right about corporations, and he is right
about labor. On every question that would come before the bench he has

so far shown himself to be m much closer touch with the policies in which
you and I believe than even White, because he has been right about corpora-
tions, where White has been wrong. He is really a better Republican than
Brewer 1 or Holmes. I have grown to feel most emphatically that the Supreme
Court is a matter of too great importance for me to pay heed to where a man
comes from. While I have not clearly formulated this plan of which I am
about to speak, I am tentatively taking into account the fact that if I appoint
Lurton I may later be able to appoint Moody; then saying “it is true that this
is making two appointments from Massachusetts, but I have shown already
in my appointment of a Tennessean and an ex-Confederate soldier, nomi-
nally a Democrat, that I pay heed only to the real need of the Court, and
I am doing the same thing in this case.” I have not definitely made up my
mind, but the above represents my present intention.

I drew a sigh of relief after reading Bryan’s speech. I think he has helped
us immensely. Down at bottom Bryan is a cheap soul. He felt that he had to
take an attitude that would show that he was really a great deal more radical
than I was. He did it. Now he has been inclined to hedge about it, which
will merely give an added impression of weakness. Yes; my attitude has been
vindicated. Ever yours

4034 * TO EDGAR ERASTUS CLARK RoOSevdt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 5, 1906

My dear Mr. Clark : 1 This administration has had no stouter friend than the
Speaker of the House. We could not have done in the past the things you and
I believe in, and we shall not continue to do them in the future, without the
kind of backing that he has given us. There has been a curious combination
to beat him for re-election in his district. Labor men who think that he has
not gone far enough for labor, and free traders who distrust his standing for
a protective tariff, and men who are disgruntled at his rugged independence,
all join against him. It seems to me that not only as good Republicans but as
good citizens we ought to feel that it would be a veritable calamity to have
Mr. Cannon, not beaten — as I do not suppose that is possible — but not re-
elected by an increased majority, so that his influence will not be impaired.
I need not say to you that it is a simple absurdity to portray him as an enemy
of labor. People might just as well call him an enemy of capital because he
helped pass the interstate commerce bill this year, or favored the employers’
liability bill. He is a patriotic American. He is for every man, rich or poor,
capitalist or labor man, so long as he is a decent American; and he is entitled

1 Da\ id Josiah Brewer, since 1889 Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, vigorous
proponent of judicial sanctions for laissez-faire conservatism

1 Clark had just been appointed to the enlarged Interstate Commerce Commission.
The other commissioners appointed at this same time were Franklin K. Lane and
James S Harlan

397

to our support because he is a patriotic man. Is there anything you can
properly do to help him in his district? Sincerely yours

4035 • TO FLORENCE LOCKWOOD LA FARGE Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 5, 1906

Dear Florence: I return herewith the Electra. It seems to me that Murray 1
has rendered the play admirably. The first twenty lines are particularly good.

What extraordinary people the Greeks were! I do not know whether
most to admire the wonderful power and artistic beauty of the play, or to
shrink from the revolting nature of the theme. I have never been able to see
that there was the slightest warrant for resenting the death of Agamemnon
on the part of his son and daughter, inasmuch as that worthy gentleman had
previously slain another daughter, to whose loss the brother and sister never
even allude; not to mention the fact that he obtained possession of the daugh-
ter, in order to slay her, by treachery, and that he brought Cassandra home
with him as his mistress. I think Clytemnestra’s sin mild indeed compared
with Agamemnon’s. If it is said that the Greek judgment was influenced by
the very different culpabilities to be attached to a man and a woman, then
why should no punishment whatever be awarded to Electra for her part in
the murder of her mother, in which she was really the determining factor?
Whereas Orestes was haunted by the Furies, Electra was promptly married
“to an earl who kept his carriage.”

It was delightful having you here. Ever yours

4036 • TO ANDREW CARNEGIE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 6, 1906

My dear Mr. Carnegie: I have your letter of the 27th ultimo. I shall at once
go over with Mr. Root whether it is possible to make some such proposal
about arbitration as you suggest. Meanwhile I have been thinking more and
more that we might at least be able to limit the size of battleships, and I
should put the limit belovo the size of the Dreadnought. Let the English
have the two or three ships of the Dreadnought stamp that they have al-
ready built, but let all nations agree that hereafter no ship to exceed say
fifteen thousand tons shall be built. I am inclined to think that, although not
a very large, this would be a very real, advance, and it is possible that the
powers would agree to it, for surely they must be a little appalled by going
into an era of competition in size of ships. Germany, which, as you know,
has been extremely lukewarm in all Hague matters, might be inclined to
1 George Gilbert Aime Murray, British classicist and translator.

398

agree with us in limiting the size of battleships, because her coasts are shal-
low and it is a disadvantage to her to have to build large ships. 1
With warm regards to Mrs. Carnegie. Sincerely yours

4037 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE RoOSCVelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 8, 1906

It seems advisable to send two war vessels to Cuba, one to Havana and one
to Cienfuegos to protect American interests. 1 What vessels should be sent
and how soon can you send them?

Immediate action necessary.

4038 • TO JAMES ADAM BEDE Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 8, 1906

My dear Mr. Bede : 1 I have your letter of the 6th instant. The trouble is
that so many Congressmen ask me to write individual letters (two other
requests have come in the mail with yours) that it is evident that I shall
have to refuse to write any individual letter or else I shall have to write one
for every Congressman, which of course would be ridiculous and do harm
and not good. Don’t you think that my letter to Mr. Watson covered the
case. That was a letter written to help in the election of a Republican Con-
gress, and that of course means to help in the election of each nominee of
a Congressional Republican convention. How could I be more definite than
I was in that letter?

Believe me, that I hate to seem churlish and not to respond to a personal
appeal, but I am sure you will understand how impossible it is for me to
respond to one and not to others, and that if I responded to all it would
simply turn the whole matter into a jest. 2

With regard, Faithfully yours

4039 • TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS .

Private Oyster Bay, September 9, 1906

My dear Sir George: I was very sorry to learn from your letter of the death
of your sister. Pray accept my deep sympathy. I am ashamed to have been
the cause of making you write a long letter at such a time. But I want to

1 Carnegie, with Roosevelt's official approval, later urged this plan upon the British
Cabinet Britain, however, declined.

1 Palma had requested these ships through Consul General Frank M. Stemhart.

1 James Adam Bede, Republican congressman from Minnesota, 1903-1909.

2 Roosevelt sent similar replies to other Republican congressmen who had requested
personal letters of endorsement.

399

thank you for giving me the first clear idea I have had as to the reason why
so many Englishmen whose judgment I respect distrust Balfour.

To me, levity and cynicism in a public man seem well-nigh as objection-
able as corruption itself. The man who regards politics merely as a game is
but one degree less noxious to his country than the man who attempts to
make something out of his public life for his own personal advantage. Last
winter I reread the Phineas Finn series of Trollope’s novels, and it seemed
to me that they, perhaps unconsciously, gave a rather startlingly clear expo-
sition of the reasons why a government of well-educated gentlemen, of good
social standing, some of them rich and none of them in actual poverty, but
few of them having any real convictions or feeling deeply upon subjects
vital to the welfare of the country, may be at bottom as objectionable as,
altho superficially much more agreeable than, a body of demagogs or cor-
ruptionists.

Every sober-minded public man who takes his responsibilities seriously
must «entirely» agree with Gladstone and Peel in their abhorrence of a pol-
icy which, for the sake of temporary political advantage, light-heartedly
abandons the effort to make outgo average less than income. This year, thank
Heaven, I got thru with twenty-eight millions to the good, which just bal-
ances up for the preceding year For my five years I am well ahead, and
would be still further ahead if we had not paid fifty millions for the Panama
canal out of our annual income instead of issuing bonds, which, considering
that it is a permanent investment, I should have preferred to do

I am a good deal concerned as to the practical method of putting a stop
to the expense incident to the increase of armaments. I should bitterly regret
seeing England or America left at the mercy of any great military despotism,
or unable to check any military barbarism. I have no sympathy with those
who fear to fight in a just cause, and who are not willing to prepare so that
they can at need fight effectively. But neither have I any sympathy with
those who would lightly undergo the chance of war in a spirit of mere
frivolity, or of mere truculence, and I hate to see the budgets of civilized
nations burdened with constantly increasing cost because they vie with one
another in the matter of armaments. I recognize the great difficulty of com-
ing to an agreement as to their limitations; but it does seem to me that it
would be possible to come to some agreement as to the size of ships. If we
could agree that hereafter no battleship of say over fifteen thousand tons
should be built, I do not believe that it would result in any more battleships
being built than if the limit were not agreed to, and the result would be a
great diminution in expense.

At the moment I am concerned in foreign matters over two things —
Newfoundland and Cuba. The difficulty in Newfoundland is one to which
both the British Empire and the United States are specially liable — the fact
that one is a federal republic and the other a federal empire, and that there-

400

fore the central government is at times sure to be greatly worried by the
actions of some local government in international affairs. When the Italians
were lynched at New Orleans , 1 for instance, this Government found itself
responsible to the Italian Government for what had been done by citizens
whom it could in no way control. We finally paid as a matter of grace a
large sum to the Italian Government, which was the proper thing to do; and
I am, as a matter of principle, sorry to say that the lynching had a most
healthy effect in a local situation which was becoming unendurable. But the
affair illustrated the difficulty in which this Government might at any time
find itself because of an outrage committed by some one State as regards a
foreign power. So it is in regard to the Newfoundland matter. The New-
foundland Legislature has past acts as regards our fishermen which practi-
cally nullify the treaty advantages conferred upon them by the British Gov-
ernment. I have far too keen a sense of our own limitations as a national
government to fail to recognize similar limitations in Great Britain; but I
am really at my wits’ end how to combine showing this consideration with
at the same time not abandoning the interests of our fishermen.

In Cuba, what I have dreaded has come to pass in the shape of a revolt
or revolution. We of course kept everything straight and decent in the
island while we were running the government, and for the four years that
it has been independent the push that we gave enabled them to go on along
the same path. Now a revolution has broken out, and not only do I dread
the loss of life and property, but I dread the creation of a revolutionary
habit, and the creation of a class of people who take to disturbance and de-
struction as an exciting and pleasant business, steadily, altho intermittently,
to be followed. In confidence I tell you that I have just been notified by the
Cuban Government that they intend to ask us forcibly to intervene in the
course of this week, and I have sent them a most emphatic protest against
their doing so, with a statement that I am not prepared to say what I will
do if the request is made. On the one hand we cannot permanently see Cuba
a prey to misrule and anarchy; on the other hand I loathe the thought of
assuming any control over the island such as we have over Porto Rico and
the Philippines We emphatically do not want it, and tho nothing but direst
need could persuade us to take it, once that we did so we should firmly con-
vince most nations that really we had been intriguing to put ourselves in
possession of it. As a matter of fact, what I have been ardently hoping for
has been, not that we should have to reduce Cuba to the position of the
Philippines, but that the Philippines would make such progress that we could
put them in the position of Cuba.

All this is of course for your private eye and represents merely the fact
that I have to blow off steam by making a wail to somebody. I guess I can
work it out all right somehow, but I do not yet quite see how.

1 In 1891.

40 x

Don't you like Murray’s translation of the Electra? It was sent me two
or three days ago, and it reminded me somewhat of Fitzgerald’s paraphrase
of the Agamemnon , which I reread in consequence. Sincerely yours

4040 • to Robert bacon Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 10, 1906

Dear Bob: I am more and more imprest by your suggestion about Root, tho
I greatly wish we could have an hour’s talk with him before he went to
Cuba. If he could stop in Havana and make a serious address to the people,
calling attention to the fact that those who bring about revolution and dis-
turbance are in reality doing their best to secure the intervention and domi-
nation of the United States and are in the profoundest way unpatriotic to
the cause of Cuban independence, he might accomplish a great deal. 1 It may
be impossible to wait, however, until he can get there, and when you come
here next Saturday or Sunday we will have to consider whether it is not de-
sirable for me in some shape or way, whether in a formal letter to the Cuban -
Congress or otherwise, to speak a solemn warning stating that we do not
want to intervene, but that they will leave us no alternative if they reduce
the country to a condition of revolutionary anarchy. It may be that such a
warning would make some of the revolutionists pause. In any event it would
clear our skirts.

Cannot you wire to Steinhart to tell Palma to use in the most effective
fashion all the resources at his command to quell the revolt? Sleeper is evi-
dently a wretched and worthless creature, and Morgan needs to be told that
he has mist the great chance of his diplomatic life by not being on the spot. 2
At the first symptom of disturbance in Cuba he should have been hurrying
to his post.

I send you the enclosed from Steinhart, which please look thru carefully,
and treat it as confidential. Steinhart is wrong about immediate intervention,
but it may be worth while considering whether an emphatic warning to the
people of Cuba as to what revolutionary disturbances will surely entail in
the way of intervention would be a good thing. I will speak to you about
this next Saturday. Meanwhile cable to Steinhart for his private information
that it would be out of the question for us to intervene at this time; but that
we are considering whether or not to send a word of emphatic warning as
to the certainty that intervention will come in the end unless the people are
able to patch up their difficulties and live in peace. Let him convey this con-
fidentially to Palma, but not publish it. Let him, however, publish the au-
thorized statement that the article in La Lucha purporting to give a statement
by the Herald as to my views on the Cuban situation is without one particle

1 Root was unable to get to Cuba.

* Jacob Sleeper, secretary of the American legation at Havana, and Stemhart were,

in Morgan’s absence, together representing the United States government.

402

of foundation and represents simply a tissue of deliberate and malicious in-
ventions. Sincerely yours

4041 * TO GEORGE ALBERT CONVERSE RoOSCVelt MSS.

Oyster Bay* September 10, 1906

My dear Admiral Converse : Will you bring quietly before the General
Board this letter of Ambassador Sternberg and the accompanying article
in the French Momteur de la Flotte by the Italian Naval Constructor?
I wish you would go over it in connection with information we may have
as to the effect of the intermediate Japanese batteries on the Russian ships
in the Sea of Japan battle. I am not at all sure that the destructive effect to
the personnel of the five and six-inch guns is something that we can safely
disregard in eliminating these guns from our batteries. At any rate I want the
most careful judgment on the matter from the General Board.

Have you seen Mahan’s article on the Russian-Japanese War in which he
touches on this very point? 1 Sincerely yours

4042 • to james Wilson Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: You are handling those packing men exactly right
I am greatly pleased, and thank you for telling me what you have done,

I am concerned as to what you say as to the Congressional situation even
in Iowa. We have some unfortunate issues to meet. Prohibition in Maine had
nothing to do with the national Republican party, yet it caused us a mighty
unpleasant time in getting our four Congressmen. In Iowa you know the
causes of our trouble even better than I do. In Illinois it will simply be the
sagging back after the phenomenal victory of two years ago. In Ohio it is
the fight against the Senators by the rank and file of the party. It is a similar
fight against Penrose in Pennsylvania In New York it is a general discontent,
and above all a bitter fight against Platt and Odell. But while these are only
local matters, we in the general government will suffer. In addition, I do
not think that Congress was quite wise in their treatment of the labor people.
After Gompers issued his circular attacking the Congressmen it was too late
to do anything but make a resolute fight, 1 but I think more wisdom on the

1 “Reflections, Historic and Other, Suggested by the Battle of the Japan Sea,” Fro -
ceedings of the United States Naval Institute , 32 447-471 (June 1906), see No 4071.

1 The circular, issued in August, called upon union labor to defeat those congressmen
who had been hostile to labor legislation, to nominate independent candidates where-
ever both major parties ignored the demands of labor, and to support congressmen
regardless of party who had upheld those demands. Cannon, who like Littlefield was
a major target of Gompers, considered the circular the introduction of the blacklist
into politics.

part of Speaker Cannon and the Labor Committee in Congress would have
averted a good deal of this trouble. It is a bad business to solidify labor
against us. I need hardly tell you that I believe in refusing any unjust de-
mand of labor just as quickly as I would refuse any unjust demand of capi-
tal; but great care should be taken when assuming a position antagonistic to
labor on one point to make it clear as a bell that we are not as a whole an-
tagonistic, but friendly, to labor. Sincerely yours

4043 * TO JOHN ST. LOE STRACHEY Roosevelt M.SS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1906

My dear Strachey: I thought your article in the Spectator anent my spell-
ing order contained so much that is good that I want to write you to say
that I think you hardly realize what my action itself was. I send you here-
with a pamphlet showing just what was done. With nine tenths of your arti-
cle I am not only heartily in agreement, but in such agreement that I would
be quite content to rest the justification for what I have done upon it; for
you will see that I have done but very, very little! I am rather amused, how-
ever, to find that you are prepared to go further than I am on certain points,
and yet suddenly revolt at such a word as “program,” which has practically
been adopted here in America. You suggest an international conference, and
say that my action will not have as much effect as would the summoning of
such a conference. Most assuredly it won’t, because my action was not any-
thing like as strong as the action of summomng a conference would be. I
do not regard the time yet as ripe for a conference. I firmly believe that the
great majority of the changes that I have authorized will by the middle of
the present century be regular, ordinary, commonplace English. Doubtless
there will be a few which the public will from reason or caprice reject: and
their decision will necessarily be final in the long run. I was not trying to
dictate to anyone. I was trying to do what I could m aid of what seemed to
me a proper movement of a body of scholars by adopting, not words that I
personally had picked out, but words that they had picked out as being those
which were in process of change at the moment, and as affording examples
as to which it would be wise to have the change furthered. Personally I
would not have picked out all the words they chose, but I did not feel like
exercising any independent judgment of my own in the matter, just because
I did not want to seem to dictate. There are Englishmen, like Professor
Skeat 1 and Dr. Murray, 2 who will agree with me in this matter, just as there
are Americans, like Professor Lounsbury and President Butler, who will

1 Walter William Skeat, philologist, professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge Univer-
sity, 1878-1912

2 Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, lexicographer, editor of A New English Dic-
tionary on Historical Principles

404

agree with me Professor Lounsbury being without exception the greatest
and most profound scholar we have on this side of the water; and no Eng-
lishman can object to what I have done with more rabid ferocity than many
Americans do a ferocity which certainly does not irritate me, and which,
frankly, I can say hardly even amuses me. Faithfully yours

4044 * TO LESLIE MORTIER SHAW RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1906

My dear Shaw: That is a mighty strong letter of yours. I have sent it to
Hill and asked him to return it when he has read it, and it may be that I
shall submit it to several of our tariff reform friends, especially from Massa-
chusetts — that is, on the supposition that you do not object. I am not pre-
pared to say that I entirely agree with you, but I do not see how the standpat
position could be put with greater force and clearness or in more con-
vincing shape; and I do entirely agree with you that it is nonsense to expect
any action whatever prior to the next Presidential election.

The one question about the tariff where I w T ouId be most inclined to differ
with you is that referring to the popular feeling. Beveridge, for instance,
writes me that what he calls the “Joe Cannon and Congressional Committee
attitude” on the tariff is a damage, and that our people cannot stand it. As
Tom Reed so admirably put it, there is a great tendency in every “deestrick”
to believe in the unmade tariff law. I think this year the issue can be met
simply by not saying “standpat” in an offensive way; that is, by expressing
a willingness to revise the tariff whenever it is necessary, but at the same
time cautioning people against jeopardizing our general prosperity by such
a revision until they are absolutely convinced that it is necessary. In my own
judgment, at the time of the next Presidential campaign we shall have to
commit ourselves to revising the tariff, because I think popular sentiment
will demand it, and moreover, there is some justification for the view that
after twelve years it is a good thing to have the schedules looked over. If,
for instance, what some steel men say is true, namely, that a heavy cut could
be made in steel duties with absolutely no effect, it should be done, if only
for the look of the thing. I got the agricultural implement makers — that is,
those western reciprocity people, to agree not to try to do anything this
year, but they say they are perfectly willing to have a cut on their own
implements and warned me fairly that after this Congressional campaign was
over they should begin a serious fight for revision — a fight which of course
will need to be taken into account in connection with our attitude in 1908.

All of this is of importance only if we carry the House. If the Democrats
carry the House nobody can tell what shape the fight will take.

Now, a word as to my pet iniquity, the coinage, which I am getting
Saint-Gaudens to start. I am afraid I shall have some difficulty with the
Mint people, who are insisting that they cannot cut the coins as deep as they

should be made. I enclose you a specimen, and I direct that Mr. Barber 1
have the dies made as Saint-Gaudens, with my authority, presents them. Mr.
Barber is quoted as saying that they could not cut them as deep as this. We
then applied to Tiffany and Gorham, the two great silversmiths and jewelers
of New York. Mr. Kunz of Tiffany, and Mr. Buck of Gorham’s, at once
stated that their houses could without difficulty at a single stroke make a
cut as deep as this. Mr. Barber must at once get into communication with
Tiffany and Gorham, unless he is prepared to make such a deep impression
without such consultation. Will you find out from him how long it will take,
when the full casts of the coins are furnished you by Saint-Gaudens, to get
out the first of the new coins — that is, the twenty-dollar gold piece, which
is the one I have most at heart? All I want to know from Mr. Barber is how
long it will take to make them, and the cost; and if there is likely to be a
long delay and seemingly too much expense I shall want him to communi-
cate with Messrs. Buck and Kunz. But if he has to communicate with them
I should regard it as rather a black eye for the Mint and a confession of in-
feriority on their part to Tiffany and Gorham. Will you communicate all
this to the Mint people* Sincerely yours

4045 * to james Wilson Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, September 12, 1906

My dear Secretary Wilson: Mr. Thomas E. Wilson 1 will call upon you in
reference to certain protests he has to make as to the particular kind of label
on canned goods for export in three cases. I of course do not know what
may be said on the other side, and I wish you to write me with entire free-
dom and frankness and accept what I am about to say as being merely my
impressions of the case as it strikes me at the moment.

Mr. Wilson’s first complaint is that of being required to leave off the
word “Bologna” from sausages, on the ground that it is not made m Bo-
logna. I think on this he is right. Bologna sausages are not commonly under-
stood to be made in Bologna any more than Castile soap is understood to be
made in Spain. It would be nonsense to refuse to allow a person to use the
term “Castile” unless the soap was made in Spain. So it would seem to me
to be nonsense to refuse to allow people to use the word “Bologna” before
“sausage” if, as a matter of fact, it is the same sausage as people call Bologna
sausage. Not one in a thousand persons knows where Bologna is — and I per-
sonally am not that one.

In the next place he wishes to use the words “canned roast beef” instead
of calling it “canned boiled beef,” although the latter would be nearer the

1 Charles E. Barber, engraver at the Philadelphia mint.

1 Thomas Edward Wilson, Chicago packer, at this time vice-president of Morris and

Company, later president of that firm, 1913—1916; founder, 1916, of Wilson and

Company.

406

exact fact. Here again it seems to me that the object can be attained by
allowing the use of the words “canned roast beef,” provided there is put on
the outside of the can a statement of what the actual preparation is — which,
as I understand it, is that it has been boiled for fifteen minutes and then
steam-roasted for three hours.

Finally, there is the desire to use the words “silver leaf” or “lily leaf” lard
in the shape of using them as “silver leaf brand” or “lily leaf brand,” it being
claimed that these forms of words are now accepted simply as trade mar ks
and that to use the word “brand” will show that they are being used simply
as trademarks. I am not as clear about this as about the two other cases, but
there would seem, offhand, to be a good deal of justice in the contention
that they could be used with the word “brand” so as to make it evident that
they are merely trademarks — the inspection of course showing that the lard
is pure.

Will you let me know about these three matters as soon as it is convenient,
writing me with absolute frankness? Sincerely yours

4046 • TO SAMUEL ALAIN HARPER Roosevelt MSS .

Private Oyster Bay, September 12, 1906

My dear Mr . Harper : 1 I thank you for your letter; but alas! my dear sir,
with the Cuban revolt and the trusts and questions affecting corporations
and labor, the Panama Canal, Indian matters, the Congressional election, and
a good many other things needing my constant and practical attention, I
simply have not the time to go into the Burr matter. Have you ever read
Burr’s journal, which he kept for his daughter? It is the journal of a man
who is morally capable of any iniquity. In the matter of treason I do not
myself think him worse than some of the men who at the time loudly con-
demned him; but I think that you will find that my sentence was literally
accurate and that he was acquitted on a technicality; and while I could not
now give you the authorities, I know that I was clearly convinced that he
was ready to go into either the conquest of Mexico, or a part of it, or else
into a scheme to separate the West, according as circumstances might turn
out. Sincerely yours

4047 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 12, 1906

Dear Cabot : I agree absolutely with what you say. I want on the bench a
follower of Hamilton and Marshall and not a follower of Jefferson and Cal-
houn, and what is more I do not want any man who from frivolity, or dis-

1 Samuel Alain Harper, Chicago lawyer and naturalist, leading Illinois authority on
workmen’s compensation legislation, author of My Woods {1923) and A Hoosier
Tramp (1928).

407

inclination to think, or ignorance, or indifference to popular moods, goes
wrong on great questions. I am going to see Taft and Day together as soon
as I return to Washington and go over most carefully with them the whole
Lurton business.

In view of the fact that the question of liquor or temperance always
works to our harm, and that the liquor men and temperance people invari-
ably subordinate all greater issues to the one m which they are immediately
interested, I think we came out very well m Maine. Littlefield was the easiest
mark the labor men could have tackled, and it was very hard saving him
because he has in times past essayed to rise by trampling down others. That
is, he has done in a modified way the McCall act of trying to appear great
by criticizing his associates m the House, the President, and all others. It is
the cheapest way that I know of striving to get a reputation for independ-
ence, and is never resorted to by a really fine man. But of course the issue
came in a way that rendered it more important to save Littlefield than almost
anyone else who was up for Congress.

I had sent you the Hapgood correspondence before receiving your letter.
It is only rarely that one can get at a conceited and insincere jack of the ad-
vanced mugwump type, because usually it doesn’t pay to shoot at him, but
this particular time I did take solid satisfaction out of hanging even so small
a hide on the fence.

I have been over Winston Churchill’s life of his father. 1 I dislike the
father and dislike the son, so I may be prejudiced. Still, I feel that, while
the biographer and his subject possess some real farsightedness, especially in
their appreciation of the shortcomings of that “Society” which had so long
been dominant in English politics, and which produces m this country the
missionary and the mugwump, yet they both possess or possest such levity,
lack of sobriety, lack of permanent principle, and an inordinate thirst for
that cheap form of admiration which is given to notoriety, as to make them
poor public servants. Ever yours

P.S. I have asked Shaw to stop all proceedings in reference to appraiser’s
store site until after I have an opportunity to go over the matter with you
after my return to Washington.

4048 * to Robert bacon Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 12, 1906

Hurry instructions to Navy Department to send at once additional ships to
Havana and to get as many marines on them as possible. We should have
a large force of marines in Havana at the earliest possible moment on any
vessels able to carry them. Cable Steinhart that the message has been received
and that we will send ships and marines as soon as possible for the protection

1 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill , 2 vols (New

York, 1906).

408

of American citizens and American property. Come here on Friday without
fail and see that Assistant Secretary Newberry or Secretary Bonaparte comes
at the same time . 1

4049 • TO ROBERT bacon Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 13, 1906

You had no business to direct the landing of those troops without specific
authority from here. They are not to be employed in keeping general order
without our authority. Notify me immediately if they cannot be taken to
the American Legation with the field pieces and kept there. Scrupulous care
is to be taken to avoid bloodshed. Remember that unless you are directed
otherwise from here the forces are only to be used to protect American life
and property. 1

4050 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 13, 1906

Dear Moody: I have your letter of the 12th instant. Tell Purdy 1 to go ahead
as you suggest in the ice matter.

Now as for Kellogg and Morrison’s report about the Standard Oil, 2 I do
not see how we can refrain from taking action about them. I wish the formal
report to be ready at the earliest day practicable in October, as I should like
to dispose of the matter as soon as possible after my return to Washington.
Copies can be sent to Root, Taft and Bonaparte as you suggest.

As for spelling reform, in view of the more important matters on hand
I can only advise you to follow the example of the younger Mr. Weller just
prior to the moment when he was in such unseemly fashion advised by the
elder Mr. Weller how to spell his own name — and this to the great scandal
of the court.

By the way, if I know that element of Boston which already regards me
1 Roosevelt sent a similar telegram to Bonaparte

1 Charge Sleeper, on Bacon’s authority, had ordered the landing of 125 marines, who
encamped in front of Palma’s mansion. They w ere sent back aboard ship after Bacon
received Roosevelt’s order See Fitzgibbon, Cuba, p 117

1 Milton Dwight Purdy, Minnesota Republican, Assistant Attorney General of the
United States, 1903-1905, since 1905 assistant to the Attorney General m the anti-
trust work of the Justice Department, later United States district judge, 1908-1909,
Progressive national committeeman from Minnesota, 1912-1916, judge in the United
States Court in Shanghai, 1924-1937. In 1906 Purdy handled the indictment and
prosecution of ice dealers in the District of Columbia charged with price fixing and
suppressing competition This action of the Justice Department was supplemented
at the next session of Congress by a law authorizing the establishment of a new,
competing firm m the ice industry in the District.

*This was the basis of the Bureau of Corporations report of May 1907. See No 3931,
note 1

as dangerous, its worst fears will have been realized by my action about spell-
ing. Ever yours

4051 'TO CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 13, 1906

My dear President Eliot . I have already been interesting myself in that Reed
memorial matter, and I am going to send a separate message to Congress soon
after the session opens, laying before them various documents on the sub-
ject. 1 I think this would be the most effective way by which I could adver-
tise what is being done. If you will draw up for me something that could be
put into it as to the effort to raise a subscription for the widow, I will par-
enthetically embody it in my message Don’t you think this would be the
most effective thing I could do?

I do not believe that it will be possible for me to speak at Harvard next
year, even on the request of the Memorial Society, which I need not tell you
I should hate to refuse. I am doubly sorry because I should like to make just
the kind of speech you mention. Take what is happening in Cuba now. In
strict privacy I will tell you that I have already been asked by President
Palma to intervene. These people have had for four years a decent, respecta-
ble government of their own. They are not suffering from any real grievance
whatsoever. Yet they have deliberately plunged the country into civil war, and
if they go on will assuredly deprive themselves of their liberty. I am think-
ing of sending them a word of solemn warning, but I do not know whether
it will do any good. Taft is coming down to consult with me about it. On
the other hand, poor Palma is helpless just because he would not face facts,
and would believe that he could make his people understand how he was
trying to serve them and keep them content without spending money on a
thoroly efficient military force. I am by no means certain that it will be pos-
sible to prop him up and I expect to do some tall thinking in the effort to
bring about a condition which shall, if possible, put an end to anarchy with-
out necessitating a reoccupation of the island by our troops I do wish our
people could have it drilled into them that our revolution was only justified
by the outcome of the Civil War, that if we had split off from Great Britain
only then again to split into a «snarl» of weak, savage little republics, half
of them owning slaves, we would have proved that the Tories were right
and George Washington wrong. It was the work of Washington and Ham-
ilton, accomplished m the teeth of the Jeffersonian resistance after the Revo-
lutionary War, which of course rendered it possible for Lincoln and Grant

1 In a message to Congress on December 5, 1906, Roosevelt requested a proper
memorial for Walter Reed, This was accomplished physically in the Walter Reed
Hospital and verbally in Senate Document , 59 Cong , 2 sess , no. 10, “Experiments
Conducted for the Purpose of Coping with Yellow Fever,” a pamphlet m which
Reed’s achievements were set forth.

410

and the men who upheld the one or followed the other to keep this country
a nation. Faithfully yours

[ Handwritten ] I should think our anti-imperialist friends ought to learn
a little wisdom from what is happening in Cuba.

4052 * TO ROBERT bacon Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, September 14, 1906

My dear Sir: In view of the cables which have been received making it evi-
dent that President Palma intends to resign at the earliest opportunity and
that the Vice-President and Cabinet seem resolved to avoid taking upon
themselves the responsibilities of government, and in view of the repeated
requests of President Palma for the landing of troops and intervention, it Is
evident that we must act at once m such a way as to protect American in-
terests by fulfilling American obligations to Cuba. Moreover, under the cir-
cumstances it is also evident that the ordinary type of diplomatic communi-
cation would in this case accomplish no good purpose. The situation In the
Island seems to be one of impending chaos with no real responsible head,
and the enclosed letter to Minister Quesada 1 which will be communicated
to our Charge d’ Affaires at Havana for transmission to President Palma and
for publication in the Cuban press seems to offer the best way of communi-
cating not merely with the supposed governmental authorities, but with the
Cuban people. Sincerely yours

4053 • TO DON GONZALO DE QUESADA Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 14, 1906

My dear Senor Quesada: In this crisis in the affairs of the Republic of Cuba,
I write you, not merely because you are the Minister of Cuba accredited to
this Government, but because you and I were intimately drawn together at
the time when the United States intervened in the affairs of Cuba with the
result of making her an independent nation. You know how sincere my af-
fectionate admiration and regard for Cuba are. You know that I never have
done and never shall do anything m reference to Cuba save with such sin-
cere regard for her welfare. You also know the pride I felt because it came
to me as President to withdraw the American troops from the Island of
Cuba and officially to proclaim her independence and to wish her Godspeed
in her career as a free republic. I desire now thru you to say a word of
solemn warning to your people, whose earnest well-wisher I am. For seven
years Cuba has been m a condition of profound peace and of steadily grow-
ing prosperity. For four years this peace and prosperity have obtained under
her own independent government. Her peace, prosperity and independence
are now menaced; for of all possible evils that can befall Cuba the worst is
1 Don Gonzalo de Quesada, Cuban minister to the United States.

the evil of anarchy into which civil war and revolutionary disturbances will
assuredly throw her. Whoever is responsible for armed revolt and outrage,
whoever is responsible in any way for the condition of affairs that now ob-
tains, is an enemy of Cuba; and doubly heavy is the responsibility of the
man who, affecting to be the especial champion of Cuban independence,
takes any step which will jeopardize that independence. For there is just one
way in which Cuban independence can be jeoparded, and that is for the
Cuban people to show their inability to continue in their path of peaceful
and orderly progress. This nation asks nothing of Cuba, save that it shall
continue to develop as it has developed during these past seven years, that it
shall know and practice the orderly liberty which will assuredly bring an
ever-increasing measure of peace and prosperity to the beautiful Queen of
the Antilles. Our intervention in Cuban affairs will only come if Cuba her-
self shows that she has fallen into the insurrectionary habit, that she lacks
the self-restraint necessary to secure peaceful self-government, and that her
contending factions have plunged the country into anarchy.

I solemnly adjure all Cuban patriots to band together, to sink all differ-
ences and personal ambitions, and to remember that the only way that they
can preserve the independence of their republic is to prevent the necessity
of outside interference, by rescuing it from the anarchy of civil war. I ear-
nestly hope that this word of adjuration of mine, given in the name of the
American people, the staunchest friends and well-wishers of Cuba that there
are m all the world, will be taken as it is meant, will be seriously considered,
and will be acted upon, and if so acted upon Cuba’s permanent independ-
ence, her permanent success as a republic are assured.

Under the treaty with your Government, I, as President of the United
States, have a duty in this matter which I cannot shirk. The third article of
that treaty explicitly confers upon the United States the right to intervene
for the maintenance in Cuba of a government adequate for the protection of
life, property and individual liberty. The treaty conferring this right is the
supreme law of the land and furnishes me with the right and the means of
fulfilling the obligation that I am under to protect American interests. The
information at hand shows that the social bonds thruout the Island have been
so relaxed that life, property and individual liberty are no longer safe. I have
received authentic information of injury to, and destruction of, American
property. It is in my judgment imperative for the sake of Cuba that there
shall be an immediate cessation of hostilities and some arrangement which
will secure the permanent pacification of the Island.

I am sending to Havana the Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, and the Assist-
ant Secretary of State, Mr. Bacon, as the special representative of this Gov-
ernment, who will render such aid as is possible toward these ends. I had
hoped that Mr. Root, the Secretary of State, could have stopt m Havana on
his return from South America, but the seeming imminence of the crisis for-
bids further delay.

412

Thru you I desire in this way to communicate with the Cuban Govern-
ment and with the Cuban people, and accordingly I am sending you a copy
of this letter to be presented to President Palma and have also directed its
immediate publication. Sincerely yours

4054 • TO GIFFORD pinchot Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 15, 1906

Dear Gifford I have your letter of the 9th instant. I agree with every word
you say I will ask Taft to go to Idaho and speak. There is no issue at this
election so important as to support Gooding agamst those dynamiters and
thugs. 1 Taft is going to Colorado to speak for Phil Stewart 2 at my request,
and he can go on to Idaho. Will you wire to Gooding from me saying that I
have asked Taft to speak for him because I am so interested in his re-election,
and that I am confident that Taft will do it? Sincerely yours

4055 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 17, 1906

My dear Mr. Speaker : I quite agree with you that the Maine election was a
triumph.

I have sent to Sargent and Clark copies of your letter about the railroad
men in your district. As to Mitchell, Senator Penrose swears he has great
influence over him. I do not know about this, but if your relations with
Penrose are good I wish much that you would write him a personal letter
in the Mitchell matter. Taft is going into Colorado and Idaho. Of course he
will speak in your district if you want him to.

1 saw Sherman on Saturday. I want very much that our people shall quit
attacking Gompers. It was absolutely necessary that you and Taft should
once deal with him by name; but if the attack is continually made, then,
owing to the imperfections of human nature, the average labor man grows
to believe that the head of the Federation of Labor is being attacked as such;
in other words, that he is attacked as the representative of the workingman,
and that the workingmen must all band together to resent it. The curious

1 In Idaho Governor Gooding and the Republican candidates for the legislature
campaigned on the party’s record in dealing with labor syndicalism. Goodmg won
easily and the party carried the legislature which, in keeping with the campaign
pledges, sent to the United States Senate William Edgar Borah, who had won his
early reputation m prosecuting Steunenberg’s assassins .

2 Philip B Stewart had been nominated by the Republicans for Governor of Colo-
rado He later demanded, however, that Justice W. H Gabbert, nominee for the
Supreme Court, withdraw. When Gabbert refused, Stewart himself left the ticket
The nomination was then given to Henry A Buchtel, chancellor of the University
of Denver Profiting by the Patterson-Speer division among Colorado Democrats and
by the independent candidacy of Judge Ben Lindsey, who drew many Democratic
votes, Buchtel carried the state.

4 1 3

thing is that union and nonunion labor generally act together in resentment
of such an attack, altho they have absolutely no right to. I hope that all of
our people, and especially (if I may venture to give the advice) that you,
from now on, when they deal with labor, will simply show affirmatively
what an immense amount the Republican party and this administration and
the Congresses of recent years have accomplished for labor. Put all the em-
phasis on what we have done for labor, not on attacking certain labor men,
who are then identified by a large number of slovenly thinkers with the
whole labor body. I have been somewhat surprised as well as somewhat con-
cerned to find how many good, straight, decent workingmen get mixt up
and think that the attack on Gompers is really an attack on all labor men,
umon and nonunion, good and bad, alike. You and I and the rest of us who
are in active politics often fail to realize how incapable the average man is of
drawing any distinction even of the broadest kind. From now on I would not
have any attack made on Gompers. I would put the whole emphasis upon
the efficiency of our legislation for labor and our friendliness toward labor.
No administration, Republican or Democratic, has ever begun to do what
has been done in the last five years for labor. You will find this set forth in
the Campaign Text-Book, 1 and I think it is worth while dwelling on. Sin-
cerely yours

4056 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 17, 1906

Dear Will: I am delighted with the way you are making ready the army; or
rather, the way in which under you, the army has already been made ready.

I am also obliged to you for forwarding to me the opinion of the Judge
Advocate General as to my right to intervene. I shall not submit it to Moody,
for if the necessity arises I intend to intervene, and I should not dream of
asking the permission of Congress. That treaty is the law of the land and I
shall execute it. I most earnestly hope that there will be no necessity for in-
tervention; and I have profound faith that you will be able to settle things,
for I think that the Cubans of both sides have been a good deal impressed
by the notice of what will come to them if they do not quit quarreling, and
I do not believe that Bryan’s idiotic statement that we should not intervene
will have any effect upon them, altho it may possibly have a little. 1 But if it
becomes necessary to intervene I intend to establish a precedent for good by
refusing to wait for a long wrangle in Congress. You know as well as I do
that it is for the enormous interest of this Government to strengthen and
give independence to the Executive in dealing with foreign powers, for a
legislative body, because of its very good qualities in domestic matters, is

1 Republican Text-Book for the Congressional Campaign , 1906 (New York, 1906),

pp. 50 -65.

1 Bryan had described Roosevelt’s Cuban policy as “reckless militarism.”

414

not well fitted for shaping foreign policy on occasions when instant action
is demanded. Therefore the important thing to do is for a President who is
willing to accept responsibility to establish precedents which successors may
follow even if they are unwilling to take the initiative themselves.

I do not believe m sending Mac Arthur in charge of the expedition. It
would be far better to keep him as Chief of Staff and to put Bell in charge
of the expedition.

Keep Bishop’s answer to Bigelow until we see what his other statements
are and whether there is any necessity of answering him at all. 2 I doubt if
that imbecile liar deserves a further answer, but I am mighty glad to have
Bishop’s answer for my own use, and I shall keep it.

You did admirably about the Dolan matter. 3

If you favor three locks instead of two, go ahead and I will of course
back you up.

In addition to speaking m Colorado for Stewart, I request as a personal
favor that you also speak in Idaho for Governor Gooding, who is being
attacked, I am sorry to say, by an immense majority of the labor men of
the State for his proceedings against the infamous creatures at the head of
the Western Federation of Mmers who are charged with the murder of ex-
Governor Steunenberg. If I could make any speeches this fall at all they
would be in Colorado and Idaho, because there is where the greatest issue is
up and has to be fought. I want to go over with you the situation out there
and give you my judgment for what it is worth before you make your
speech. It may be necessary for you also to speak in Cannon’s district. Ever
yours

4057 • TO FRANCIS ELLINGTON LEUPP Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 18, 1906

My dear Letipp: I send you herewith papers relating to the charges made
against Governor Frantz of Oklahoma. These charges were investigated by
Special Inspector Burns and Inspector McLaughlin, acting under the author-
ity of the Secretary of the Interior. They embody a mass of affidavits made
against and for Frantz, and against and for the chief people who testify
against him In so far as they relate to Frantz’s alleged drunkenness, etc., I
am not disposed to put much weight upon the accusations. It seems to me
that Burns and McLaughlin got into the frame of mind which is not infre-
quent on the part of many excellent federal officials whose business it is to
detect wrongdoing, that is, they became so eager to find the proof of what
was charged that they believed all kinds of rumors and all kinds of allega-

& See No 4009.

“Thomas J Dolan, secretary-treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Steam
Shovel and Dredge Men, was actively supporting the demands of the steam shovel
dinners on the Isthmus for increased pay, see No. 4146 and Appendix I.

415

tions. Certainly there is nothing m these charges on which any clear case
would be established against Frantz, and after reading them over my chief
feeling is one of profound distrust and contempt for those who instigated
this particular set of charges Moreover there is no question that these
charges were instigated directly or indirectly by adherents of ex-Delegate
Dennis Flynn, who is engaged m a bitter fight against Frantz’s backer, Mc-
Guire , 1 and of ex-Governor Ferguson , 2 whom Frantz succeeded. Ferguson’s
course as regards the Purcell affidavit was insincere and treacherous; and
Flynn, in the verbal interview I had with him in your presence as well as
the presence of the Secretary, where he was faced with the Frantz brothers,
made a pitiable exhibition of himself, broke down completely, and finally
admitted that he had not one particle of evidence to substantiate the allega-
tions which he had made to the Secretary of the Interior. Inspectors Burns
and McLaughlin inform me that their belief now is that Ferguson got some
of his friends to make affidavits exonerating Frantz in consideration of Frantz
getting some of his friends to help nominate Ferguson for Congress.

There are, however, some very unfortunate features in the case. Thus
Frantz in his affidavit states that one of the chief witnesses against him, Dr.
Hall, was a crook and a man in whom he had no confidence and with whom
he was not on intimate terms, and yet it appears that in April last, long sub-
sequently to the conversation which Hall says took place, Frantz tendered
an important governmental position to Hall. Moreover, if Frantz borrowed
i,ooo dollars for a half-breed, who is shown to be guilty of bribery, the act
was a very improper «one».

Now for where you come in. The only serious charges against Frantz
are in connection with his conduct while he was Osage Indian Agent. The
charge is made with great circumstantiality that for corrupt reasons he fa-
vored certain oil men who were endeavoring to get leases from the Osage
Indians and conducted himself most improperly as regards these oil men, the
details being set forth at length m the report of the two inspectors. One of
the charges is that he borrowed and has not since repaid one thousand dollars
from one of the Indians, who it is shown, was bribed by the oil men to make
a certain agreement with them. The present agent, Millard, the chief clerk
at the agency, Hurley, and the chief clerk of Judge Garber , 3 as well as Judge
Garber himself, all, according to the report of the inspectors, appear in an
unfavorable light in connection with the testimony. They recommend that
the Department of Justice take action in the matter. It seems to me that both

x Bird Segle McGuire, cattleman, Assistant Umted States Attorney for Oklahoma
Territory, 1897, Republican congressional delegate, 1903-1907, and representative
from Oklahoma, 1907-19 15.

2 Thompson B. Ferguson, chairman, Republican Territorial Committee, 1900-1902,
Governor of Oklahoma, 1901-1906

8 Milton Cline Garber, Republican, probate judge, Garfield County, Oklahoma Ter-
ritory, 1902-1906, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1906-1908

41 6

your Bureau and the Department of Justice must go over these papers. I wish
that you or Larrabee 4 could go over them personally before you bring them
to the attention of the Department of Justice. Then, as the matter is one of
very great importance, both Frantz and Millard being men who have hitherto
possest high characters and are now occupying prominent positions, it would
seem to me to be a good thing to have some representative of the Depart-
ment of Justice and some first-class man in whom you have entire confidence,
make a quick trip down to the Osage Agency and report to me just what
they are able to find as to these charges of corruption in connection with
Frantz’s work while he was agent, and with the conduct of the man who
has since become agent. Can you not have ready for me by the time I return
to Washington so much as I have herein requested to be done at Washing-
ton, and report to me as to your views* 5 Sincerely yours

4058 • to Joseph h. kibbey Roosevelt Ms$.

Oyster Bay, September 20, 1906

My dear Governor Kibbey : 1 1 am sorry to say grave charges have been made
to me that under the organization of which you are the active leader there
will not be a fair count of the votes on the question of statehood. If these
charges were well-founded I need not say to you that it would be a national
disaster. I have no doubt there is no truth in them; but some prominent peo-
ple in the United States do believe them, and they are joined in this belief
by some of the most prominent people of Arizona and New Mexico. There-
fore, to avoid all criticism, I direct that, if you can in any way arrange it,
you have representatives of the statehood people present at the canvassing of
the votes on statehood. I have sent a copy of this letter to Governor Hager-
man and directed him to make the same arrangement — that is, have repre-
sentatives from both the statehood and antistatehood parties present to wit-
ness the count of the votes. Sincerely yours

4 Charles F. Larrabee, assistant commissioner of Indian affairs
c Leupp, in his answer of September 27 to Roosevelt, agreed with the President that the
charges against Governor Frank Frantz were open to question The governor might,
he felt, have been irresponsible in his selection of friends and liquid refreshment and
dilatory m the payment of debts; but Leupp believed that charges that Frantz, while
Osage Indian agent, had accepted bribes from the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil
Company were based on insufficient evidence. At the President’s request he sent
Victor N. Roadstrum, special agent of the Justice Department, and Frank M.
Conser, chief clerk of the Office of Indian Affairs, into Oklahoma. to investigate.
Their investigations cleared Frantz and completely reversed the opinions of Inspec-
tors Burns and McLaughlin, a fact which strengthened Roosevelt’s disapproval of
the administration of the Interior Department. See Numbers 4084, 4118.

1 Joseph H. Kibbey, Republican Governor of Arizona, 1905-1909.

4 r 7

4059 ’ TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 20, 1906

Is it possible to institute investigations to see what Americans, if any, have
been furnishing funds to the revolutionists^ 1

4060 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 21, 1906

I approve entirely your plan. I suggest, however, that if you have to land
troops in Havana you will avoid the use of the word intervention and simply
state that they are landed to save life and property in Havana. In view of
what you say it is manifestly impossible for us to try to sustain Palma, and
I doubt if it will be wise to try to keep him temporarily in office. As I under-
stand your plan it is in substance to tell the 'insurgents and the moderates
alike that they must put in some acceptable man or men to continue the
government temporarily and take steps to remedy the wrong committed at
the last election, these steps including a new election. I do not see how the
insurgent chiefs can object to this, and if they do it seems to me they put
themselves out of the pale. In any event I authorize you to use your discre-
tion, if you have to act so quickly that you cannot communicate with me,
and in such case you can of course count upon my absolutely standing by
you; but equally of course I desire if possible that you communicate with
me before taking such final steps as will irrevocably commit us to interven-
tion. 1

4061 * TO PHILANDER CHASE KNOX Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 22, 1906

My dear Senator Knox: First let me say how much we enjoyed having both
of you here.

Next, curiously enough, out of a letter from MacVeagh I got a good
record of what the present Pennsylvania Legislature has done. I now have
your invaluable memoranda. 1

1 See No. 4064.

x For the dimensions of the Cuban problem, see No. 4027, note 1. For the telegrams
from Taft to which this and later telegrams from Roosevelt replied, see House
Document , 59 Cong,, 2 sess., no 1.

1 Roosevelt on October 4 spoke at the dedication of the new Pennsylvania state
capitol at Harrisburg. He dwelt at some length on the state’s recent social and
economic legislation. His central theme, however, was national — a familiar rehearsal
of the evils of corporations with emphasis on the need to insure judicial support for
national regulatory legislation. Roosevelt’s address is published with some omissions
m American Problems ^ Nat Ed. XVI, 69-75 For the complete text, see the Wash-
ington Star } October 4, 1906.

4!8

Third and most important, let me say that I think it of the utmost con-
sequence that you should speak in the present campaign. A Senator is ex-
pected to speak in a great political contest. He ought to. He is a political
leader, and we have a right to expect his leadership. I think you ought to
make at least two speeches, and those not only for the sake of Pennsylvania
but for the sake of all the country. Congressman Sherman, the Chairman of
the National Congressional Committee, has wired me that he thinks it most
important that you should thus speak. Faithfully yours

4062 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 22, 1906

Much pleased with your telegram. Of course if continuance of Palma can be
secured I think it would be best; but I am afraid you will find difficulties in
the way.

4063 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 22, 1906

I repeat my entire approval of your proposal. Put in some temporary execu-
tive and then carry out the plan of action you outline in your cable including
the resignation of half the senate and half the house, the restoration of the
municipal officers improperly removed and a new election under new elec-
toral law. The moderates must accede to these terms because they would fall
like a house of cards and without an effort if we turned against them. As for
the insurgents have it understood that you will land troops at once in order
to protect life and property in Havana or any other city if they approach
nearer than you think they ought to. But if they object to the terms you
offer I would not offhand send an ultimatum that unless they accede within
five days the United States will forcibly intervene. I would suggest that be-
fore sending the ultimatum we invite counter proposals from them. It is not
only important to try to get them to come to an agreement but it is impor-
tant from the standpoint of public sentiment here that we shall make it plain
that we are exhausting every effort to come to an agreement before we in-
tervene.

4064 • TO CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 22, 1906

My dear President Eliot: Taft has cabled me that even their preliminary in-
vestigation shows that the part played by any American agitators or moneyed
men in b ringing about the revolutionary movement is either nonexistent or of
infinitesimal importance.

There has been one curious development in this Cuban business. Again

419

and again, from the most divergent quarters, I have received the prayer to
send Wood back in complete control. This of course is not at present feasi-
ble; but it affords a curious commentary upon the attitude that so many
people have taken toward Wood. Of course any man in public life who is
worth his salt in intellect or morals grows to accept with grim humor the
gusts of wild popular feeling, now of adoration of utterly base men like Miles,
or unworthy commanders, like Schley, now of clamor against particularly
efficient and faithful public servants like Wood; and the extraordinary thing
is that as far as I can see many of the educated classes, such as not a few
Harvard graduates, and of course not only people like the editors of the
Evening Post , who are almost always foolish, but people like the editors of
the Sun> whose folly is less invariable, are apt to be as bad as uneducated
people in a matter like this.

Wood’s remarkable career at Santiago received an almost disproportion-
ate recognition and approbation, and then for a variety of reasons, some of
which I have never been able to fathom, there seemed to be an organized
turning against him. In this movement utterly foolish creatures of the Eve-
mng Post standard, who believed it wicked to control a set of bloodthirsty
bandits in the only way in which they could be controlled, less foolish but
more inscrutable creatures like the editors of the Sun , who were probably
partially influenced by men like General Wilson, who was eaten up with
jealousy of Wood’s superior success, but who must have had other hidden
motives — joined with the men who, like Hanna, were indignant simply
because Wood succeeded in putting in jail a variety of corrupt scoundrels
headed by that post-office official, Rathbone. The very men who are fond of
shaking their heads over the effect of mere routine advancement of elderly
military incompetents to high positions, the minute that Wood, who with the
exception of Bell has undoubtedly shown more ability than any other man in
the army, was promoted, screamed that his promotion was due to favoritism.
Unthinking good people gradually took up the same cry; and I have been
literally astounded to find that probably nine-tenths of the people I have met
who had thought about the matter at all were inclined to be against Wood
I never had a harder fight than to get him confirmed as major general, tho
I do not think there is a competent critic who does not realize that he is far
and away the best major general we now have and that there is no brigadier
general except Bell who is as good; and Bell is a man who was advanced to
his present position by an even longer jump than Wood’s. Wood and Bell
are the two best officers we now have. Wood is being used in the Philippines.
If I am, in spite of my infinite reluctance, forced into action in Cuba, I
think Bell will be the man I shall have to send. If I had to repeat the adminis-
tration of the islands — something on the old terms, I should probably again
restore Wood; tho I might keep Bell.

Cuba is my immediate concern in foreign or semi-foreign affairs, but I
have before me also The Hague, and what is far more important than The

420

Hague, the Panama Canal. In The Hague my chief trouble will come from
the fantastic visionaries who are crazy to do the impossible. Just at present
the United States Navy is an infinitely more potent factor for peace than
all the peace societies, of every kind and sort, that are to be found in the
United States put together. I am confident that within the last few years we
should have been, and very possibly would be now, within measurable dis-
tance of war either with one great European or one great Asiatic power, if
it were not for the condition of our navy. Either of the great powers in
question would grin with entirely unaffected enjoyment at the thistledown
arguments of our professional peace demagogs. Yet I am very anxious to
take some real steps towards helping bettering the conditions that tell for
international peace. I do not believe that this country has ever done more for
peace than it has done during the last five years; and neither this country
nor any other country has ever acted with more scrupulous regard for the
rights of all other countries, the weak as well as the strong, than we have
shown during the past five years. At The Hague I think we can make some
real progress, but only on condition of our not trying to go too far.

As for Panama, our difficulties are of an entirely different kind. It Is a
colossal work. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent. Scores of thou-
sands of men will be employed in every capacity. All kinds of problems of
engineering, of hygiene, of the employment of capital and the employment
of labor will have to be met. It is utterly impossible that errors should not
here and there be committed. The people at large will expect a speed and a
certainty of result and an absence of error that are out of the question, and
dishonest creatures of every kind will seek for personal or political advantage
in pouncing upon small errors and using them to float immense masses of
slanderous falsehood. The Democratic Congressional Committee has an-
nounced that one of the reasons it wants to secure a majority of the House
is for the purpose of investigating the graft in the various Departments and
in the Panama Canal. I do not believe that there is a responsible Democratic
leader who would not privately tell you, with a laugh, that he knows this
graft to be nonexistent, but he hopes that enough stir about it can be made
in the year before the Presidential election to benefit his party; and he is
entirely indifferent — I speak of men like John Sharp Williams, Bailey, Till-
man and their like — as to the amount and far-reaching nature of the damage
he incidentally causes to the country; and there is always the chance that
some nominal Republican like McCall will help him. Sincerely yours

4065 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS ,

Oyster Bay, September 23, 1906

Dear Kermit : Life has moved on very quietly here since you left. Mother and
I are just going out for a row. If you were here either we should take you
along on the row, or we would go walking with you. We had a lovely ride

421

together one day, and I have played tennis a good deal, beating Gordon
Russell two sets in singles, by the way; and I have chopped trees, especially
where it would clear our vista.

Quentin the other day hurt Mother’s feelings terribly by making a strong
plea to be allowed next fall to go to the Fay School with Mike Landon.
Mother said that this was the first time that one of the little birds had been
willing to leave the nest even before it could fly — that all the other little
birds had been most reluctant to go even when it was time for them to fly.
I guess that no one of the older boys, or indeed of the older children, has
wanted to go off to boarding school before the actual necessity arose. George
has come home, having had a most successful trip and one which I think was
very creditable to him. Archie has been taken off by good cousin Emlen for
a day on his new thirty-footer, and started off this morning just before church
time a most happy little boy; Mother and I with Ted and Quentin driving
to church, where we were joined by good Ethel after she had finished teach-
ing her Sunday School class. Your loving -father

40 66 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 25, 1906

Am of course greatly concerned at news. If it is the obstinacy of Palma and
the Moderates which is the cause of the trouble I greatly fear that the mobili-
zation of troops would merely strengthen them in their course. Instead of
my cabling direct to Palma I authorize you to sign for me and if in your
judgment wise deliver the following.

President Palma.

I most earnestly ask that you sacrifice your own feeling on the altar of your
country’s good and yield to Mr. Taft’s request by continuing m the Presidency
a sufficient length of time to in his judgment inaugurate the new temporary gov-
ernment under which the arrangements for peace can be carried out. I sent Mr.
Taft and Mr. Bacon to Cuba on receipt of your repeated telegrams stating that
you would resign, that this decision was irrevocable, and that you could no longer
carry on the government. It is evident that under existing circumstances your
government cannot stand, and that to attempt to maintain it or to dictate your
own terms about the new government merely means disaster and perhaps rum
for Cuba. Under you for four years Cuba has been an independent republic. I
adjure you for the sake of your own fair fame not so to conduct yourself that the
responsibility if such there be for the death of the republic can be put at your
door. I pray that you will act so that it shall appear that you at least have
sacrificed yourself for your country and that when you leave office you leave
your country still free. You are then not responsible if further disaster should
unhappily overtake Cuba. You will have done your part as a gentleman and a
patriot if you act in this matter on the suggestion of Mr. Taft and I most
earnestly beg you to do so.

Theodore Roosevelt

422

I also authorize you to vary the phraseology of the above if you think
it important. On the other hand point out to the insurgent chiefs that this
is their last chance; that additional warships are coming; that the army is
being mobilized, and that if we are obliged to intervene in Cuba now and act
against the insurgents, that no matter what destruction they may temporarily
cause and no matter how much delay there may be, the ultimate putting
down of the insurrection is an absolute certainty and that if this is done
they will forever stand as the authors of the destruction of the republic, as
the people who when Cuba was free and independent by their own wicked
act reduced her to a condition of dependence.

4067 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 25, 1906

I do not understand how conditions have changed so completely. It seems
to me that the thing to do is to land the troops and temporarily assume the
functions of the government, but to say nothing about suppressing the insur-
rection; and on the contrary to have an agreement with the insurrecto leaders
to the effect that we are merely taking Palma’s place to do what they had
said would be entirely satisfactory to them in their conversation with you.
It seems to me that under the Platt Amendment it is at least doubtful whether
the resignation of the regular government would not amount to substituting
the hitherto insurrectionary party as the government de -facto . At any rate
I am inclined to think that unless you have reason to the contrary of which
I am ignorant, it would be better to proceed with the insurrectos along the
exact lines that you have proposed, simply notifying them that as Palma will
not act we will appoint some man to act in his place until the plan you have
sketched out and to which they have agreed can be put thru. I am certain that
we wish not merely to act but to make it conclusively appear that we do act
with the most evident good faith in our effort to keep an independent Cuban
government and to exhaust all possible means of effecting this purpose before
we go into the business of armed intervention and face the destruction of
property and the harassing warfare that would necessarily follow. I do not
understand why this plan I speak of is not feasible now unless the insurgents
have changed their attitude from what it was forty-eight hours ago when, as
you telegraphed me, they acceded to your proposals. I do not believe we
should, simply because Palma has turned sulky and will not act like a patriot,
put ourselves in the place of his unpopular government and face all the
likelihood of a long drawn out and very destructive guerrilla warfare. Cer-
tainly I do not think this should be done unless we can make it clear that the
insurrectos will not act reasonably. As I say, there may be reasons that I do
not know why what I now suggest is not feasible, but if so I wish you to
cable me.

40 6 8 * to william Howard taft Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 26, 1906

Have just received your telegram of today. Am immensely pleased with
it and am delighted with the way you are handling situation. You are doing
just what I hoped would be done. Remember, however, that we are certain
to be violently attacked in Congress not only by most of our open political
opponents but by republicans who have special cause to be jealous of either
you or me and we should leave them as little room for attack as possible.
Avoid the use of the word intervention in any proclamation or paper of
yours and if possible place the landing of our sailors and marines on grounds
of conservation of American interests emphasizing the temporary character
of the landing and the hope that our keeping sailors, marines or troops in the
Island will be but for a short time until a permanent government has been
formed. This as I say is important not merely for the sake of the Cubans but
for the sake of meeting our opponents at home of whom I suppose Foraker
will be chief. Please consider whether it would not be well at first to limit as
far as possible the places where we have to establish garrisons. I want to make
it evident beyond possibility of doubt that we take no step we are not abso-
lutely forced to by the situation and therefore I should like to avoid taking
possession in appearance of the entire Island if that is possible. Of course I
understand that it may not be possible to avoid this. Of course if it becomes
necessary to answer any statement of Palma’s and the Moderates point out
the fact that you and Bacon only went down there when they had requested
us to intervene by force of arms and after Palma had notified us that he
would resign and that neither the Vice-President nor the other members of
the Cabinet would go on with the government so that we were brought face
to face with the Island being left in absolute chaos with no government at
all and all of this by the act of Palma and his government before a single
step had been taken by us. I sympathize most heartily with your abhorrence
of the insurrectionary spirit and appreciate keenly the evil necessarily done
by the recognition of the insurrectionary party into which we are forced,
but this evil is not in the slightest degree due to any act of ours On the con-
trary it is evident that only your going to Havana prevented that city and
all of Cuba from falling immediately into the possession of the revolutionists.
We have not caused the evil, we have simply dealt with it in the wisest pos-
sible manner under conditions as they have actually been.

4069 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 26, 1906

Have been thinking over your last telegram in connection with your previ-
ous telegrams and letter. It is undoubtedly a very evil thing that the revolu-

424

tionists should be encouraged and the dreadful example afforded the island
of success in remedying wrongs by violence and treason to the government.
If the Palma government had shown any real capacity for self-defense and
ability to sustain itself and a sincere purpose to remedy the wrongs of which
your telegrams show that they have been guilty, I should have been inclined
to stand by them no matter to what extent, including armed intervention. But
as things actually are we do not have the chance of following any such
course. Before you and Bacon went down we had been notified that Palma
would resign, that the Vice-President and Cabinet would refuse to go on
with the government, and now you inform me that this is their definite
intention, in other words, that they absolutely decline either to endeavor
to remedy the wrongs they have done or to so much as lift a hand in their
own defense or make an effort to secure the stability of their government or
the overthrow of the insurrectionists. Under such circumstances, as the
least of two very serious evils it seems to me that we must simply put our-
selves for the time being in Palma’s place, land a sufficient force to insure
order, and notify the insurgents that we will carry thru the program in which
you and they are agreed, keepmg control simply until this program can be
carried thru. I do not have much hope that with the example before them
of such success in an insurrection the people who grow discontented with
the new government will refrain from insurrection and disturbance some
time in the future, but there is a slight chance and in my opinion we should
give them this chance. Then if the new government sooner or later falls to
pieces under the stress of another insurrection, not only will our duty be
clearer but the conception by our people and by the people of other nations
of our duty will be clearer, and we will have removed all chance of any
honest people thinking we have failed to do our best to establish peace and
order in the island without depriving it of its independence. It seems to me
that by following this course, that is by avoiding any threat or warning to
the insurrectos unless they refuse to carry out the agreement which they
have already made, we shall put ourselves in a strong position in case any
of the insurgents refuse to carry out the agreement. From what you say it is
possible the insurrectos will not act together, and in such case it would be an
advantage to us to have a portion of them with us in case a struggle should
have to come. I feel therefore that in ordering troops to land or issuing any
proclamation in my name, which of course I hereby authorize you to do, you
should base your action upon the ground that organized government had
disappeared and that order must be kept, and should avoid issuing an ulti-
matum to the insurrectos or the use of phraseology saying that they are in
revolt against the United States until you have seen whether they will not
in good faith carry out the agreement they have already made with you,
you on your part carrying out so much of the agreement as you had intended
to have Palma carry out. Of course there may be circumstances known to

425

you which make this plan of mine futile, and I am giving my views with
the understanding that they come from a man at a distance, who does not
know the facts as you do on the ground. If possible cable me fully, but if
the crisis comes and has to be met I hereby authorize you to do whatever
in your discretion you deem best. I cannot understand how our legation
should have been so completely in the dark as to give us no inkling of what
was coming, the minister going off on a holiday to Europe on the very eve
of the outbreak, when as now appears many outsiders months ago saw what
trouble was impending. I am concerned at what you say about Squiers, and
if such rumors are on foot I do not see how we can appoint him to any
ministership. 1 1 hope an effort will be made to trace the rumor down 2

4070 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 26, 1906

Your second cable of today has been received. Things are certainly kaleido-
scopic and I must trust to your judgment on the ground how to meet each
successive change as it occurs. Let me repeat that if possible you base any
action m landing a force and taking possession of the government or restor-
ing order upon the need of protecting American interests, and avoid so long
as it is possible the use of the word intervention or the use of terms that will
imply that the rebels are in the position of an insurrection against us. This I
advise primarily with a view to complications here, and of course it is always
subject to the needs of the situation being such as to require us to risk any
political trouble here in order to do our duty m Cuba. I think you understand
thoroly what I mean, however, which is to do anything that is necessary no
matter how strong the course, but to try to do it in as gentle a way as possi-
ble, and to try to use terms which will be as little as possible of a challenge
to opposition. But the main thing after all is to bring about a satisfactory re-
sult in Cuba and with this in view I am willing of course to incur any criticism
and run any risk.

On Friday morning I sail on the Mayflower at eleven o’clock, and will
be in Buzzards Bay at the target practice at eight o’clock Saturday, leaving
Buzzards Bay at two o’clock Saturday afternoon and being back here at
eleven o’clock. If possible shape your action so that it will not be necessary
to cable me while I am at sea, altho I shall have wireless telegraphy. If how-
ever you think the situation so critical that I ought not to leave, wire me
tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon and I will abandon the trip.

1 It was rumored but never proved that Herbert G Squiers had delivered large sums
of money, reputedly from the tobacco trust, to rebel leaders to finance the insur-
rection. Squiers, appomted minister to Panama in 1906, served there until 1910

2 This cable amplified the earlier message of the same day.

426

4 o 7 1 • TO william SOWDEN sims Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 27, 1906

My dear Commander Sims : I regard your article as convincing and have
modeled the recommendation in my message accordingly.* I have sent a copy
of your communication in strict secrecy for the confidential information of
Captain Mahan. Sincerely yours

4072 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 27, 1906

Dear Cabot: I send herewith the autograph for Mrs. Sheridan. I wish she had
asked for something better worth while.

Beveridge was out here and added very slightly to my troubles by an*
nouncing that in his judgment popular feeling was against “standpatism” and
in favor of an immediate revision of the tariff, and that as popular feeling
was that way we ought at once to declare for it. I asked him to consider two
facts, first, that we must under no circumstances promise what we do not in-
tend to perform, and second, that as a corollary to the first, he ought seriously
to consider whether there was any chance of revising the tariff before the
Presidential election, whether he could get the Republicans to entertain the
idea at all, and whether if they did entertain it, it would be possible to have
a revision without inviting disaster to the Presidential election. He treated
both these considerations as irrelevant. His advice as regards Cuba was simple,
namely: that I should at once take the Island — advice about as rational as
requests I used to get at the time of the anthracite coal strike, to “take the
coal barons by the throat.” However, I will do him the justice to say that
he is far better than Foraker, who telegraphed me his judgment that I could

1 Sims, at Roosevelt’s request, had answered an article written by Mahan in June
1906 which had revived the arguments for the small mixed-calibre battleship. (See
No 4041,) In discussing the lesson of the battle of the Sea of Japan, Mahan argued
that the volume of fire had been the decisive factor m the Japanese victory and that
the secondary batteries on the Japanese ship had been in large part responsible for
delivering this fire. Moreover, a reliance on smaller guns had m Mahan’s opinion
the inestimable advantage of keeping the combatants at close range. Great guns and
long ranges, by taking the sailor out of the turmoil and hazard of the classic naval
encounter of the past, would, he thought, produce in officers an “indisposition to
close” and thus tend to undermine the moral fibre of the navy.

Sims, untroubled by the insidious implications of long-range combat, asserted
that the lessons of Tsushima in no way disproved the superiority of the all-big-gun
ship. After pointing out the inadequacy and often incorrectness of Mahan’s data, he
demonstrated that speed, not volume of fire, had been decisive at Tsushima. Further-
more, Sims stressed that the volume of hits was far more critical than the volume of
fire. If the Japanese had had all-big-gun ships with the latest fire control equipment
on board, their fire would have developed a greater rapidity of hitting at even
longer ranges than those at which the battle was fought. Roosevelt, thoroughly con-
vinced, used Sims’ arguments repeatedly in his long campaign for the construction
of an American dreadnought fleet (see Numbers 4191 and 4635)- For an extended
discussion of the Sims-Mahan debate see Morison, Si?ns , ch. xi.

427

not intervene at all; that it was not a matter for the President, but for Con-
gressional action, and that anyhow Palma was all right. I do not know
whether he was speaking purely from foolish convictions, or whether, as
was much more probable, with the deliberate desire to be mischievous, I did
not send Taft and Bacon to Havana until Palma had repeatedly telegraphed
us that his unalterable purpose was to resign forthwith, that the Vice-Presi-
dent and the members of his Cabinet would decline to take or remain in
office, and that he was entirely unable to quell the insurrection. I have, I need
hardly say, a horror of putting what is m effect a premium upon insurrection
by letting the insurrectionists receive benefit from their action; but Palma’s
utter weakness — or, to speak with literal exactness, his impotence — to do
anything effective toward quelling the revolt (for I treat as of less moment
the undoubted and gross misbehavior of the party in power at the last elec-
tion) made it absolutely imperative that I should take some step unless I wisht
to see chaos come in the Island. Of course if I had announced, as Mr. Bryan
advised, that under no circumstances would I use armed force; or if, as
Foraker desires, I had stated I could take no action until Congress decided
what to do — just imagine my following the Buchanan-like course of summon-
ing Congress for a six weeks’ debate by Bacon, John Sharp Williams, and
Tillman as to whether I ought to land marines to protect American life and
property — the fighting would have gone on without a break, the whole
Island would now be a welter of blood. Of course our permanent policy
toward the Island must depend absolutely upon the action of Congress. No
matter what construction is given the Platt amendment, Congress has nothing
to do but to refuse appropriations to put it into effect, and the Platt amend-
ment vanishes into air, and any stay of marines and troops m the island be-
comes impossible. Equally of course, I should be ashamed to look anybody
in the face if I hesitated to take important measures to try to secure peace,
if necessary by landing sailors and marines or even troops, so as to try to
re-establish some government in Cuba and keep the island so far as possible
in decent condition until Congress meets, when it can itself take action. I
hope that, Beveridge to the contrary notwithstanding, we shall not have to
intervene in any permanent form at present, and that we can simply make
temporary arrangements to keep order until an election can be held and a
new government or modified government started. I am inclined to think
that, thanks to the fact that I have shown that I was ready to intervene by
force of arms if necessary, the necessity will be for the present avoided, but
I am greatly disheartened at what has occurred and doubt very much
whether in the end we shall not have to exercise a more immediate control
over Cuba; and of course it is possible that we shall be unable to make a
working scheme even now, and that we shall have to take possession of the
island temporarily this fall. But I shall do all that I can to avoid this and I
hope to be successful.

I do not like Foraker’s action at all. He is a very powerful and very

428

vindictive man, and he is one of the most unblushing servers and beneficiaries
of corporate wealth within or without office that I have ever met. It is possi-
ble that he has grown to feel so angry over my course, that is over my having
helped rescue the Republican party and therefore the country from the
ruin into which, if he had had his way, it would have been thrown by the
party being made to appear as simply an appanage to Wall Street — that he
intends hereafter to fight me on every point, good or bad.

Well, I do not see how I could do otherwise, under difficult circum-
stances, than I have done in this Cuban matter; and it was as always the
greatest possible comfort to have such a man as Taft to whom I could trust
the job. As a small ray of light I am pleased with what has been accomplished
in New York Republican politics. This year the situation got into such shape
that I had to take the initiative myself even at the risk of being called a boss,
dictator, and so forth. By good fortune my interference was successful, first
of all in securing the election of Parsons over Quigg, with as a result the
dethronement of Odell; and then by persuading Higgins of his own accord
to withdraw, and finally to come out himself in effect for Hughes. But I
could not get Hughes nominated until thru Cortelyou and Congressman
Cocks I notified the various up-State leaders that in my judgment it was the
only thing to do. The Odell people all wanted Black, and the Higgins people,
Bruce, and Woodruff had also been a candidate, and none of the three
would have been anything like as strong as Hughes or as representative of
the new conditions in the Republican party. Hearst’s nomination drives all
decent-thinking men to our side, but he has an enormous popularity among
ignorant and unthinking people and will reap the reward of the sinister
preaching of unrest which he and his agents have had so large a share in
conducting; and he will also reap the benefit of the hideous misconduct of
the big corporations which has been showing up during the last eighteen
months.

How are your own State affairs getting along in Massachusetts 5 I speak
at Harrisburg next Thursday. Knox and his wife spent the night here last
week. I have arranged for Root to make a big speech in New York. I
shall try to handle the Cuban business so that it will not hurt us, and only
hope that Foraker or some man of the McCall stripe will not in his eager
desire to injure me or advance his own fortunes, do damage to the Republican
party and the country, by attacking the policy. Ever yours

4073 * TO JOSEPH BENSON FORAKER Roosevelt MSS .

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 28, 1906

My dear Senator Foraker: I thank you for your very kind telegram of
September 27th. Here is briefly the situation as it now is. I shall ask you to
treat this letter as confidential at the moment; tho of course when Congress
meets you are welcome to show it to any of your colleagues whom you

429

think should see it. I have been at my wits’ end in this Cuban business. I most
earnestly desire that Cuba shall be able to go on with her Government. All
I ask of the Cubans is that they shall be prosperous and happy, and they can-
not be prosperous and happy unless they have a reasonable degree of order
and of protection for life and property. I share absolutely your indignation
with the insurgents. They had serious grievances m connection with the
election last December, but I do not regard these grievances as justifying, or
coming anywhere near justifying, their plunging the country into possible
destruction by an insurrection, and I hate to give the encouragement to them
that is undoubtedly given by any recognition of them. At the outbreak of
the insurrection all that I did was to give every possible support to the Palma
government, the regularly constituted authorities, even going to the length
of facilitating their getting cartridges from this country — for I felt that a
successful insurrection, or indeed a long and dragging civil war, in Cuba
would be a serious calamity for Cuba and a real evil to the United States;
but the Palma government proved helplessly unable to protect itself. It seems
to have almost no support among the Cubans; it had taken no steps in
advance which would enable it to put down an insurrection, and it did not
develop a single man capable of meeting the crisis with nerve and vigor.
Palma sent us a series of appeals asking for immediate armed intervention,
saying that if it was delayed his government would fall and chaos would
ensue; and then in another telegram reiterating the statement that he was
going to resign at once, that the Vice-President and Cabinet would refuse to
go on with the government, and that he did not believe a quorum of Congress
would assemble, so that absolute chaos would come and that we must land
troops to protect property At the same time I received all kinds of appeals
from American citizens who asserted that their property and even their lives
were menaced, while we had information that both the British and French
Governments were preparing to act to protect their subjects unless we
acted.

I am sure you will agree with me that it would not have been wise to
summon Congress to consider the situation in Cuba, which was changing
from week to week and almost from day to day, and as to which I was not
yet in a position to make definite recommendation. You, my dear Senator,
are the last man to advocate my playing a part like President Buchanan or
failing to take the responsibility that the President must take if he is fit for
his position. I realized then and realize now, as a matter of course, that any-
thing I do must be of a tentative nature, and that as soon as Congress comes
together it must decide as to what policy we shall permanently follow —
always provided that by that time the situation is such that we can see our
way clear to outline any permanent policy. Meanwhile it was absolutely
necessary for me to meet the existing emergency. Of course to do nothing
until Congress met would have been even more Buchanan-like than to have
summoned Congress and tried to shift my responsibility upon its shoulders.

430

I accordingly had to act, understanding of course that I could inaugurate no
permanent policy, but simply handle affairs until Congress met and I would
have the opportunity to lay before them a full account of what I had done,
with the reasons that influenced me, and what arrangements temporary or
permanent I would advise to be undertaken.

I at once sent ships to Havana and Cienfuegos, where there was the most
pressing need for the protection of the persons and property of our citizens,
and I made up my mind I would send Taft with Bacon as an assistant directly
to Havana and would issue a public appeal to the Cubans, which appeal you
doubtless saw in the press. My aim of course was to try to get some modus
vtvendi which would avoid the necessity of intervention on our part, and
would give the Cuban republic another chance for its life — a chance I most
earnestly hope it will take advantage of, tho of course I am bitterly disap-
pointed that after four years of peaceful independence the Cuban people
should be guilty of the criminal folly of this insurrection. Taft and Bacon at
once went to Havana, and I judge by Taft’s daily, and sometimes almost
hourly, cables to me that they have been having an awful time ever since. The
situation changes like a kaleidoscope The Palma government has been utterly
unreasonable and has evidently been bent upon forcing us to an armed in-
tervention in their support. Palma, for instance, insists that he will resign
and that none of his adherents will remain in office and that we must take
possession of the government. Yet when Taft gets the insurgents to agree to
what, under the circumstances and having in view the utter military in-
capacity of the Palma government, is a very good compromise — namely,
that Palma shall continue in office for his term and that a new election shall
be held for senators and congressmen to take the place of those who were
undoubtedly put into office by glaring frauds last December — Palma bluntly
repudiates the agreement and says he will not go into it. Meanwhile there
were all kinds of obscure intrigues between some sections of the Moderates
and some of the insurgents Nothing but the presence of our ships and of
Taft and his party has prevented the bloody overthrow of the Palma govern-
ment. We are receiving earnest appeals for additional forces to protect the
lives and property of Americans around Cienfuegos, while Havana would
probably see a hideous convulsion if we were not able to send ashore marines
and sailors at a moment’s notice — and Taft is convinced that there cannot be
much longer delay in landmg them. Taft’s last dispatch to me is that Palma
insists upon resigning and upon the United States taking control, because
his resignation cannot be accepted inasmuch as there is not a quorum of
Congress present, and so there will be no government at all I am keeping as
thoro direction of the situation as I can by cable, but (and here again I am
sure you will agree with me) I must give Taft, who is on the ground, a good
deal of latitude, for it is impossible to manage a job of this nature satisfac-
torily from the other end of the cable. I still hope we can avoid landing a
very great number of sailors and marines. Hitherto, as you know, we have

had only about one hundred of the same landed at Cienfuegos, but it may
be impossible for me to avoid landing troops temporarily for the purpose
of bringing about the pacification, just as we have landed them again and
again in, for instance, Santo Domingo, Honduras, and China. I am fighting
hard to try to bring about some arrangement which will obviate this neces-
sity; but if it comes I cannot shirk taking the necessary temporary measures
if I have to front doing so or else seeing chaos in Cuba.

I wish I could see you and consult with you. Sincerely yours

4074 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 28, 1906

Your telegram of September 27th received. It is very difficult for me from
here to understand exactly the needs of the situation and therefore why one
course is better than another. My offhand judgment is that it would be better
to follow your first impulse and agree to the formation of a provisional
government under a provisional president in spite of its not being constitu-
tional. Upon my word I do not see that with Cuba in the position it is we
need bother our heads much about the exact way m which the Cubans
observe or do not observe so much of their own constitution as does not
concern us. Certainly the constitution will come to an end if President Palma
resigns and leaves his office while there is not a quorum of Congress to accept
his resignation. Neither do I understand why the fact that the government is
not within the Constitution, as you say, would alter our control of the
situation for pacification. I think it would be a misfortune for us to under-
take to form a provisional government if there was a fair chance of obtain-
ing peace by allowing the Cubans themselves to form their own provisional
government.

Remember that we have to do not only what is best for the island, but
what we can get public sentiment in this country to support, and there will
be very grave dissatisfaction here with our intervention unless we can show
clearly that we have exhausted every method by which it is possible to
obtain peace and the perpetuation of the government with some show of
order prior to our taking control ourselves. You say that the underground
agreements will be detrimental under the proposed provisional Cuban gov-
ernment. From your telegrams I gather that there are hardly any excepting
undesirable people to appoint to office and of course as soon as we inter-
vene there will not be left any Cuban republic which can receive detriment.
I feel very strongly that any provisional government which offers any
reasonable chance of securing peace should be tried and any scheme for
such a provisional government encouraged before we take control of the
government ourselves. I do not think that we should take such control except
as a last resort, and after every other expedient for securing pacification has

432

been attempted and I do not care in the least for the fact that such an agree-
ment is not constitutional, while I feel that the republic has suffered such
detriment already that it would be exceedingly difficult for any underground
agreement to cause it further detriment.

4° 7 5 * TO william Howard taft Roosevelt Alss.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 28, 1906

As you say matters change like a kaleidoscope, so any advice from me is
apt to be just several hours late. From this distance I do not see that two revo-
lutions would be in any way more objectionable than one and as far as our
attitude before the people of the United States is concerned it would make
our position even better, for if we have to intervene I shall not object to any
additional proof that the intervention was inevitable. If it were possible to
tide over affairs for two or three days until I could be back in Washington
I should be glad. This is of course not essential. I am about to leave on the
Mayflower for the battleship target practice, but can be reached constantly
thru the wireless telegraph. It seems to me that it might be well under the
circumstances to land an ample garrison of marines for Havana, probably
to take possession of Moro Castle. I suppose this could be done with Palma’s
full consent. As far as possible, however, avoid the use of the word inter-
vention, and if this is not possible and we have to name our own provisional
government, then emphasize the fact that our action is only temporary and
that we are landing troops to secure a pacification and set the Cuban govern-
ment going again. Do not, however, make any promise as to the withdrawal
of the troops and I need not say make every effort to get the parties to come
to some agreement by which a government shall be put in, which nominally
at any rate shall not be appointed by us. If we have to put down the insur-
rection it will of course take many months and a large force and the people
of this country will need to be convinced that there was no alternative to
our action and that we had exhausted every resource in our power in trying
to get the Cubans to come to any kind of peaceable agreement and they
will not care a rap whether such agreement was or was not in accordance
with the Cuban constitution. I should not be at all sorry to have the foreign
consuls act as to intervention of their governments as you state that they will,
because it would make our course even clearer and give us an even more
complete justification. As a mere suggestion consider what I have said about
landing forces on the ground that the danger of chaos and convulsion is so
great as to render such a step necessary while at the same time continuing
your efforts to get the representatives of the two parties to come to some
agreement even tho we should ourselves have to superintend the carrying
out of such an agreement.

433

4076 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Aboard the Mayflower, September 28, 1906

All right land forces and issue proclamation as suggested in my name, but
if possible emphasize fact that you are landing only at Palma’s request and
because there is no Government left so that it is imperative to establish one
and to land forces to protect life and property, also tell that the Government
you form is only provisional and temporary until Cubans can form one for
themselves. I suppose you will get insurgents to disperse by telling them you
will carry out substantially the agreement to which they once before as-
sented.

4077 * TO MAURICE C. LATTA Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Aboard the Mayflower , September 29, 1906

Cable Taft as follows. President sends following by wireless
Two telegrams received. Am much pleased. Earnestly hope the Cuban parties
can be persuaded themselves to agree on provisional government of some
kind that will ensure peace. I hear well of Menocal Ask Funston about him.
Make Moderators understand that if they force intervention it shall be
known they are responsible I approve the form of proclamation you sug-
gest. If we must establish provisional government of course you can land
force at any time no matter what government is inaugurated, if you think
situation requires it and I suppose from what you say that such will be the
case, but I earnestly hope you can persuade the parties themselves to agree
on a temporary provisional government which if necessary we can super-
vise until the elections you have planned can be held.

4078 • TO MAURICE C.‘ LATTA Roosevelt MSS .

Telegram Aboard the Mayflower, September 29, 1906

Cable Taft as follows:

Your cable containing Palma’s proposed message received. You have done
all in your power to get Cubans to establish their own government. You can
now do nothing but establish provisional government, as you suggest. I
approve your proclamation with insertion of statement that the Cuban flag
will fly over the public buildings. Land marines at once to guard treasury,
and of course I presume also to take possession of forts and guard the water
works. I hope you can convince insurgents that it is to their interest to lay
down arms at once as we intend immediately to hold a new election and that
they will have practically all the advantages they would have had if Palma
had gone into the original agreement to which they assented.

434

4079 ’ TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, September 30, 1906

Have directed that the six thousand men go to you. You might announce
that they are to relieve the sailors and marines. This may make it a little
easier as regards any Cuban insurgents who may wish an excuse to be sus-
picious of our good faith. Shall I cable Winthrop to join you at once? I
presume you will wire Funston and Duvall yourself. I congratulate you most
heartily upon the admirable way you have handled the whole matter. It is
another great public service you have rendered. Will you also congratulate
Bacon most heartily for me upon what he has done? I am especially pleased
with the agreement which the revolutionary committee signed. Have directed
the State Department to continue Cuban foreign relations, consuls and minis-
ters as if no change had occurred.

4080 • to john biddle Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, October 1, 1906

My dear Colonel Biddle: I write you on a subject as regards which I think
all of the District Commissioners will agree with me and on which I feel sure
that you will feel as strongly as I do, namely: the refusal to admit to some
public places of amusement the enlisted men of the army and navy in uni-
form. In Washington at Chase’s Theater enlisted men are admitted to the
gallery only, not to the orchestra. Now, I desire to have some public declara-
tion to the effect that no license will hereafter be granted to any public
place of amusement in the District of Columbia unless on the explicit under-
standing that the enlisted men of the army and navy are admitted in uniform
or without it, and Chase’s Theater should be especially notified.

The Randall Company of steamers are reported to refuse to take enlisted
men m uniform on excursions to River View. I should like a report about both
this Randall Company and the Chase Theater & on the general matter.
Sincerely yours

4081 *TO AUGUST BELMONT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 1, 1906

Dear Augie * I thank you heartily for that letter and I shall take the liberty of
showing it to Hughes himself. I shall advocate his doing just as you suggest —
that is, dwell upon the tenement house, child labor, and sweatshop laws of
New York State and his intention to enforce them up to the letter and
secure for their enforcement sufficient appropriation of money. I do not

435

think a more important suggestion has been made to me than this you
have thus made. 1

With hearty thanks and all good wishes, believe me, Faithfully yours
[Handwritten] P.S. I have just given Hughes the letter; he was delighted
with it.

4082 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 1, 1906

Dear Cabot : It was awfully good of you to write and wire Edith about Ted.
The scamp has never sent us a word himself. Apparently he was guilty of
folly, but of nothing worse. 1 1 have written him a letter which I think may
fairly be called both earnest and truthful.

I answered Foraker’s telegram with an extremely polite but firm telegram
of my own, which I think did him good, for he sent me a telegram in reply
which was much more friendly; and I at once wrote him at length, as I also
did Hale, explaining just what I was doing; that of course I understood
thoroly that as soon as Congress came together it would have to decide
on the course to follow; but that it seemed to me very unwise to summon
Congress now, and not merely unwise, but inadmissible for me to fear to
take action to provide temporary arrangements. Of course it is not safe to
prophesy, but Taft, assisted by Bacon, has handled the situation marvelously,
and the leaders of both sides thoroly approve of what has been done.
Palma insisted upon our undertaking the provisional government, and the in-
surgent leaders, in view of our taking it and of the announcement of our
purpose, have agreed to disband. Of course, affairs are very chaotic, and
doubtless there will be some plundering by little bands who are nominally
patriots or insurgents, but really simply bandits, and we shall have to send
some troops down; but I really think there is a good chance of our securing
peace and giving Cuba one more trial for self-government. If my hopes are
falsified and the insurgent leaders prove unable to control their own people
and guerrilla warfare ensue, we shall at least have made it evident that we
have done everything in our power to avoid the trouble and to secure Cuba’s
liberty, and that we act by force only because of the direst need. Of course
in what I have done, while my prime aim has been to follow the right
policy from the standpoint of the permanent interests of both Cuba and the
United States, I have also endeavored so to act as to prevent hurt to the
party pending the present election.

1 Hughes complied with this suggestion in a series of speeches to labor audiences
throughout the state.

1 Ted had witnessed, but not assisted, an alleged assault by one of his Harvard class-
mates on a policeman in the Boston Common He was later summoned to testify
before the Grand Jury investigating the episode At that time it was established that
Ted’s friend had tripped but not struck the officer, whose own conduct was un-
necessarily rough

436

Naturally, I am very much pleased at what we have done here, and I
have enjoyed as much as you have the astonishment of many of the Republi-
can leaders of my native State and city at finding how very respectable their
party has suddenly become. Hearst’s nomination is a very, very bad thing.

I do not think he will be elected, and yet I cannot blind myself to his
extraordinary popularity among the “have-nots,” and the chance there is
for him because of the great agitation and unrest which we have witnessed
during the last eighteen months — an agitation and unrest in large part due
simply to the evil preaching of men like himself, but also due to the veritable
atrocities committed by some wealthy men and by the attitude of the Bour-
bon reactionaries who endeavor to prevent any remedy of the evils due to the
lack of supervision of wealth. Under the circumstances I felt that in New
York an ordinary political nomination of some man like Black, Woodruff, or
Bruce would probably result in disaster at the polls. Hughes’ nomination is
an excellent thing for the morale of the Republican party, and he is identified
in the public mind as a reformer, but a sane and sincere reformer, who really
has fought against the very evils which Hearst denounces, while yet free
from any tamt of demagogy. You told me just what I wanted to know about
Moran. I only wish I knew that we were as sure of beating Hearst as you are
of beating Moran, still, I cannot help believing we shall beat ffearst, and I
am inclined to think we shall carry the House. What an awful nuisance and
what a corrupt influence Foss is. But is it not characteristic that so many of
the idiot reformers should believe in him^

Love to Nannie. I met Harry at the target practise and sent him to New-
port on a torpedo boat. Faithfully yours

The Frontier Town 2 has just come. I have only glanced at it. I look
forward to reading it with the keenest interest and am so much obliged to
you for it.

4083 ■ TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Printed 1

Telegram Washington, October 2, 1906

I feel that it is most important that if any bloodshed occurs it should be
between Cubans and Cubans, not between Americans and Cubans. Please have
the strictest instructions issued

Unless there is good reason to the contrary, competent American officers
who have served in Cuba should be immediately put m command of the
rural guard or any other force with which disorder is to be suppressed
then, in the event of disorder, the American troops should not be called upon
until the last resort.

The fighting, at least in its first stages, should be between Cubans who are
3 Henry Cabot Lodge, A Frontier Town . , and Other Essays (New York, 1906)

1 House Document, 59 Cong., 2 sess , no, 2, p. 487.

437

upholding order and the bandits. I am most anxious that there should be no
bloodshed between Americans and Cubans.

4084 • TO FRANCIS ELLINGTON LEUPP Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, October 2, 1906

My dear Leupp: Upon my word I can never sufficiently thank my stars for
having round me men like Root, Taft, Moody and yourself, — and of course
others whom I could mention. I am almost ashamed to say that your letter
in Frantz’s case gives me a clearer idea than I had from my own independent
investigations. I am almost sorry I asked you to have the men sent down to
investigate the matter. The thing that I minded was the very point that you
make, namely, Frantz’s denunciation of Hall coupled with his appointment of
Hall. That the two inspectors had gotten into the frame of mind of being
sure that their man was guilty, and of treating merely as an evidence of
his astuteness any failure to get testimony about him, was shown by their
attitude in regard to the alleged visit to the house of ill-fame by Frantz and
his brother. As you remember, they alleged that a party of several men had
met Frantz and his brother at this house and that one of these men had so
stated to them, while the others had evaded making any statement on the
subject. All these men subsequently made affidavits that they had not met
Frantz as described, and that they had not said what they are alleged to have
said. Of course in view of this complete breakdown the inspectors never
ought to have alluded to the matter at all, save perhaps to recite the facts
simply to show how they had followed up a lead which resulted in nothing.
But they solemnly put in the whole business and explained to me that they
were sure that the meeting really had taken place, that they believed the
affidavits were false and had been given by the men in question, who were
friends of Ferguson, so as to get Frantz to secure delegates for Ferguson. In
other words, they repeated vicious gossip, and then patched the gossip up by
wild guesses of their own, which reflected severely upon the character of
the ex-Govemor of Oklahoma, in order to damage the character of the
present Governor of Oklahoma.

May you have a first-class holiday. I look forward to seeing you when
you return. Sincerely yours

4085 • TO CHARLES EVANS HUGHES Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 2, 1906

My dear Mr. Hughes: By tomorrow I will be able to get hold of a trust-
worthy labor man whom I can send to you, but I have been astounded and
indeed alarmed to find that most of the men whom I wanted to get hold of

438

and send to you were against us. 1 The situation is certainly very serious in
New York, and we must get out the reserves of decent citizenship in order
to upset the apostles of unrest and their huge and misguided following.
Hearst will of course use money like water and with shameless corruption
wherever he gets a chance. You doubtless remember how Flower, in his
campaign for Governor, bought up the interior counties and cut down the
Republican vote upstate almost to the vanishing point. The Democrats have
not now the corrupt and unscrupulous but able upstate machine they had in
those days under the leadership of Hill; nevertheless I earnestly hope you
will thru Woodruff see to it that our upstate leaders are zealous and thoroly
on the alert and watchful about any such move by Hearst’s people to cut
down our vote m the Republican Counties, either by downright corruption
or by an unrebuked and uncontradicted appeal to envy and hate. I regard
your triumph as of more consequence than anything else at stake in this
election. Sincerely yours

P.S. Get hold of Attorney General Mayer. He ought to know the East
Side and ought to know how to reach it. I hear the Jews on the East Side are
enthusiastic for Hearst, as well as the Italians.

4086 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 2, 1906

Dear Cabot: I enclose a copy of a letter from Ted and of a letter of mine
to Commissioner O’Meara. 1

Moody starts this afternoon for Massachusetts. It seems to me he has
excellent ideas about a platform. The only tomfoolery that anyone seems
bent on is that about the Congo Free State outrages, and that is imbecile
rather than noxious. 2 I think on political forecasts you have more generally
been right than I have — you were certainly right about my taking the
Vice-Presidency, for instance; but I wish I shared your confidence about
our carrying the House and about our beating Hearst. The labor men are
very ugly and no one can tell how far such discontent will spread. I am
horrified at the information I receive on every hand as to Hearst’s strength on

1 In spite of Roosevelt’s effort, no union leader of large reputation or influence
declared for Hughes. He received some support, however, from organized and un-
organized labor, acting independently of unions, throughout New York

1 Stephen O’Meara, Boston Police Commissioner.

2 Humanitarian protests at the treatment of the natives in the Congo reached a new
peak in January 1906, after the publication of the report of a Belgian committee of
mvestigation. In an attempt to assuage American feelings, King Leopold granted
commercial concessions to American citizens. This roused American humanitarians
to further action, including continuing efforts to mobilize the government on their
side This they failed to do in Massachusetts and elsewhere. The Massachusetts
Republican Convention, while expressing sympathy for the persecuted Jews m
Russia, completely ignored the Congo

439

the East Side among laborers, and even among farmers. It is a very serious
proposition. People are so prosperous that they feel at liberty to indulge
themselves in experiments. There has been during the last six or eight years
a great growth of socialistic and radical spirit among the workingmen, and
the leaders are obliged to play to this or lose their leadership. Then the
idiotic folly of the high financiers and of their organs, such as the Sun , ,
helps to aggravate the unrest, while in New York the unspeakable conduct
of Odell and Platt has hurt us very seriously. Just at the moment I think we
are in danger of being hurt in New York by precisely the opposite trouble.
I have never seen the New York Republican party on as high a plane of
conduct and leadership, both as regards the men actually controlling the
machinery and as regards the candidates. I speak quite seriously when I say
that there is some danger lest people may think we are altogether too good,
and turn and vote against us.

I had a talk with Hughes yesterday, and if any man can carry the party
thru, he is the one. If we had nominated an ordinary machine hack we should
have been beaten out of sight.

Root is back from his wonderful trip. We m this country do not realize
how wonderful it was and how much good he has done.

With warm love to Nannie, and again heartily thanking you, my dear
Cabot, for your thoughtful kindness about Ted, believe me, Ever yours

4087 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, October 3, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I am greatly displeased with the conduct of Mr.
Morgan, Minister to Cuba, during the last few months and I would like the
State Department to get a precise statement from him on the following
points. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Mr. Morgan has
been absolutely useless during the crisis that has just occurred, and of course
when, in a crisis of such importance, the Minister is useless, it necessarily
means that he is hurtful, because he occupies a position which should be
filled by a useful man.

Apparently Mr. Morgan did not leave Cuba until the latter part of
July. At that time as now appears most observers of intelligence saw that
grave trouble was impending, and of course our Minister should be the man
of all others to tell us that such trouble was impending. Yet he gave no
syllable of warning, and evidently had found out nothing, for he went not
to the United States but to Europe, and must have taken no pains to keep
himself informed of what was going on in Cuba and indeed must have failed
to exercise the most ordinary vigilance on the subject, because it does not
appear that he took any measures to start back for his post until after the
State Department, by my direction, had cabled him to start. He of course
should have started before if it were possible; but in any event, after the

440

receipt of that cable he should have been on the water homeward-bound
within twenty-four hours, unless for grave reasons of which I am ignorant.
By going to Cook’s tourist agency, or in some other fashion, he could have
found at once the first ship that would bring him home, and in some way or
other he could have gotten a berth, or if necessary have come in the steerage,
or have invoked the aid of the American Ambassador in London to see
that he was permitted to come. I wish to know exactly what he did after
receiving this cable bidding him to come home; when he started home; why
he did not start home sooner, if there was a delay of more than twenty-four
hours before he started, and where he went during this delay if such delay
occurred. 1 Sincerely yours

4088 * TO JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, October 3, 1906

My dear Congressman Sherman: Root has come through pretty well fagged
out by his southern trip, and he is up to his ears in work here. He will go on,
of course, if you think it essential, but he feels that he knows nothing of the
New York situation and that all the people whom he could influence will go
for Hughes anyway as a matter of course. Moreover he feels that as things
are in New York the interest in the overthrow of Hearstism is and ought to
be so great as to take away all interest, until after the election, in Root’s
own trip. Under the circumstances he earnestly hopes that he may be
excused from speaking. Of course he would not make the request, and neither
would I, if after full consultation you and Hughes thought his going would
be of real service. But my own judgment is that in New York we must win
by a savage and aggressive fight against Hearstism and an exposure of its
hypocrisy, its insincerity, its corruption, its demagogy, and in general its
utter worthlessness and wickedness. In Maine, for instance, I do not think
we could have won at all unless we had fought on national issues for on state
issues I think our people would have been beaten out of sight. But in New
York Hearst’s nomination is of such sinister significance as to dwarf every-
thing else and will undoubtedly pull away from us a great many ignorant
people. We must rely for beating him, if it is to be done at all, upon getting
out the respectable Republican vote in full and attracting as many decent
Democrats and independents as possible, and these people would be repelled,
rather than attracted, by an appeal to national issues. Is not this your judg-
rnent^ 1

1 Morgan had returned from Europe in time to accompany Taft to Giba. He was
permitted to retain his post, serving in Cuba until 1910 when Taft transferred him to
Uruguay and Paraguay.

1 Root satisfied both Roosevelt and Sherman. Effectively combining the President s
reputation with the New York campaign in an address at Utica on November 1,
he said m part “In President Roosevelt's first message to Congress, in speaking or

44 1

I am afraid Hearst is going to pull a much larger vote from us than people
think, and I am sorry to find how general the movement against us is among
the Federation of Labor people even among those who for some years have
been friendly to us. I think the situation is serious, both as regards the State
election in New York and the Congressional election, and while I think we
can win, it will need every effort on our part. Sincerely yours

4089 • TO CHARLES EVANS HUGHES Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 4, 1906

My dear Mr. Hughes: One element that we must not forget in this campaign
is the great Catholic population of the State. In the old days Catholics used
to feel obliged to vote the Democratic ticket. More and more they have
tended to come over our way, until it has almost become true that we can
appeal to the decent Catholic just as we can appeal to the decent Protestant.
I think that with proper behavior on our part we will have a great mass of
decent Catholic support for you against Hearst; but no people like to be
ignored, even unintentionally. It was a mistake in Brooklyn not to have
at least one Catholic on our judiciary ticket, and I have begged Woodruff to
remedy this mistake. 1 I feel strongly that you should have two or three
prominent Catholics prominent on your campaign committees, and this
should be attended to at once in the early days of the campaign while the
opinions are still fluid and before they have solidified. Get at once such a
Catholic as Edward Knoeler, or as Augustus P. Montant, or as Vincent

the assassin of McKinley, he spoke of him as inflamed ‘by the reckless utterances of
those who, on the stump and m the public press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits
of malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred’ . . I say, by the President’s authority,

that m penning those words, with the horror of President McKinley’s murder
fresh before him, he had Mr. Hearst specially in mind. . . .’’ — New York Tribune ,
November 2, 1906.

1 The Republican nominations for judicial offices in Greater New York were at this
time the subject of considerable agitation. Distressed by the caliber of popularly
elected judges and particularly by the Tammany-Hearst slate of 1906, a group of
New York lawyers, headed by Joseph Choate, formed an organization, the “Judicial
Nominators,” which filed an independent ticket. Roosevelt and State Chairman
Woodruff, anxious to wm the independent vote, hoped that the Republicans would
adopt the mdependent slate The independent selections, including, as they did,
Catholic candidates, also accomplished the purpose defined in Roosevelt’s letter to
Hughes. They did not, however, include a Jew, an omission which troubled
Roosevelt and Woodruff Woodruff and Parsons were unable to persuade Choate to
change this situation. The Republicans, therefore, following the advice of Roosevelt
and Woodruff, nominated the independent candidates with one exception* the
substitution of Otto A. Rosalsky, a distinguished Jewish jurist and a party regular,
as the Republican choice for a vacancy on the Court of General Sessions. Rosalsky’s
nomination, Abe Gruber observed, was worth 20,000 votes on the East Side These
judicial selections probably strengthened the whole ticket Certamly they conformed
to the racial and religious campaign pattern Roosevelt constantly proposed for New
York.

442

Travers, or as William A. Prendergast 2 3 — yon could surely get all of these
thru Herbert Parsons or Woodruff. If necessary I would gladly write to
Gussie Montant myself. Then be a little careful about making speeches before
Y. M. C. A. or church societies unless you also make it a point to address some
Catholic society. I know from experience how sensitive the people of one
creed are if they see all the public speeches bemg made under the auspices of
people of another creed. I am doing all I can to get in touch with certain
labor men, and will let you know the result immediately. Sincerely yours

4090 * TO CHARLES EVANS HUGHES Roosevelt MSS .

Confidential Washington, October 5, 1906

My dear Mr. Hughes : I agree with every word of that letter of Charles
Sprague Smith. 1 You cannot be expected to read my addresses, but my speech
of yesterday at Harrisburg was meant to emphasize those very points; to try
to show the people that we, the moderates, are as resolutely bent on secur-
ing their rights and on curbing the great corporations, where they do
wrong, as Mr. Hearst falsely alleges himself to be; that we are leaders along
those same lines, but that we wish the victory won by the moderates and
not by a mixt crowd of wild zealots and crafty corruptionists whose victory
would mean a hideous orgy of misdoing, and ultimately a reaction, severe
even tho momentary, towards extreme conservatism.

You are a lawyer. I wish you would speak with Parsons about the
ticket the Judiciary Committee nominated. They had no business to leave an
excellent East Side Jew, Judge Rosalsky, off of it. I hope they have a good
Catholic or two on it. While I hope that it will be taken almost in its en-
tirety by the local Republicans under Parsons’ lead, yet I would not for a
moment hesitate to make two or three changes if it were deemed expedient.
In this great struggle between you and Hearst these committees of one hun-
dred and the like represent mere byplay, and their lead must not be followed
if it jeopardizes the larger interests at stake. Will you have your manager
write to Commissioner Watchom, 2 saying it is done by my request, asking
him to consult say Parsons or Woodruff, or both, or consult you, about the
labor question. He ought to be of help.

I also send you a number of papers which I have received from a Cali-

3 Of these four able and public-spirited New York Catholics only William A
Prendergast had a continuing political relationship with Roosevelt Comptroller of
New York City, 1910-1917, chairman of the New York State Public Service Com-
mission, 1921-1930, Prendergast was, in 1912, a Bull Moose. At the Progressive Con-
vention he placed Roosevelt’s name in nomination for the Presidency.

1 Charles Sprague Smith, professor of modem languages and literature at Columbia,
1880-1891, founder, m 1897, of the People’s Institute, a community center in New
York for the education of the working classes. A romantic. Smith loved the work-

ingman better than he understood his needs.

3 Robert Watchorn, United States Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island.

443

fomia friend, a Democrat, a progressive man, not a conservative — a man
who thinks just as we do about corporations, but who believes Hearst to be
a corrupt and insincere demagog and feels that the labor people of the Pacific
Slope have found him out. I think you can get some valuable hints from
these papers, and I believe your manager should act on them at once and
get hold of the men and of the documents mentioned.

My dear sir, I feel that you are fighting the battle of civilization. If you
were an ordinary timeserving politician, if you had the slightest taint of
subserviency to the great moneyed interests, I would not give a rap for your
success. But you are an honest, fearless, square man, a good citizen and a
good American first, and a good Republican also — a Republican who be-
lieves in Abraham Lincoln’s principles. You believe in reforming the rela-
tions between the Government and the great corporations as drastically as
is necessary to meet the needs of the situation, but you believe in having it
done in a spirit of sanity and justice. If I were not President I should be
stumping New York from one end to the other for you. As it is I cannot do
much of anything save to hope that my own record and the way I stand
towards these questions will help and not harm you. Faithfully yours

4091 - TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 5, 1906

My dear Senator : It is always a pleasure to hear from you and I quite agree
that information gained as you gam yours is often far more correct than
can be obtained in any other way. But your friends “Tom, Dick and Harry”
simply do not know what they are talking about if they say that “it is non-
sense to keep on setting up one Cuban government after another.” If they
believe this, it then becomes apparent that even the most ignorant have their
limitations, and that it is not safe to follow the advice even of those who know
nothing of the subject — as is the case with the “Tom, Dick and Harry” of
your letter. One Cuban government has been tumbled over. It would come
perilously near bad faith if we do what would amount to seizing this excuse
immediately to conquer the island — and I will not be guilty of bad faith to
please any number of “Toms, Dicks and Harrys”, nor would you have me so
guilty. Moreover, “Tom, Dick and Harry” do not realize that if I now started
in to conquer the island I could not do it on my own responsibility. It is not
a task to be undertaken with less than twenty-five thousand troops, and
perhaps more would be needed, while probably it would take at least a year.
For such a move the consent of Congress would have to be obtained. How-
ever, if it shall prove true in future that “as fast as one Cuban government is
set up it will be knocked over,” I think that you will find that all Americans
will stand behind the policy of taking possession of the island in some form
or other. But they would like to be sure that first we have in good faith
striven to avoid the necessity.

444

With best wishes, Sincerely yours

P.S. Your second letter has just come. It is interesting and important.
You may have noticed that I have been scrupulous not to hoist the Ameri-
can flag in Cuba, because I do not want to hoist it again unless it becomes
necessary to raise it in such a way that it has got to stay, I am mighty glad
to hear from outside sources of the extraordinary enthusiasm with which you
have been greeted wherever you have opened the campaign.

4092 • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK RoOSCVelt MSS .

Washington, October 6, 1906

My dear Mr . Secretary: I enclose a letter from Senator Warren of October
5th in which he speaks of alleged proceedings against him and against the
Commissioner of the General Land Office in the matter of illegal fencing or
land frauds in Wyoming. I presume that this is the matter to which you
referred in your letter written to me some days ago in which you stated that
you would have to report to me about frauds in Wyoming which go very
high up. My one object is to have any investigation into any alleged mis-
conduct thoro and impartial and I care not a rap whether the man hit be
Democrat or Republican, Senator or private citizen. It is necessary on every
account, however, that no publication of these facts should be made until
they are submitted to me, and if they are serious, not until they have been
submitted by me to the Attorney General, and in view of the publications
that have appeared in the past from the Interior Department I desire you to
take particular pains to see that not an allusion of any kind is allowed to get
out as to this case until it has been laid before me and until I authorize
whatever action is taken. 1 Sincerely yours

1 In December 1905, Secretary Hitchcock had sent Inspectors E. B. Lumen and
W. C. Hintze to Wyoming and Colorado to investigate the illegal fencmg of public
lands. Their report, submitted to the Secretary of the Interior m September 1906,
claimed the illegal enclosure of over 47,000 acres by the Warren Live Stock Com-
pany, in which Senator Francis E. Warren was the principal stockholder. The
inspectors also found Commissioner W. A. Richards of the Land Office guilty of
illegal enclosure through the agency of the Red Bank Cattle Company, m which
Richards had an mterest They further charged United States Attorney for Wy-
oming Timothy F. Burke with withholding evidence of these alleged frauds. The
Lmnen-Hintze report, convincing to Mr. Hitchcock, was submitted by him to the
President in November 1906.

The President turned the document over to the Department of Justice, which
in January 1907 dismissed the findings because they were based, m the opinion of
the department, on insufficient and inconclusive evidence. Agents of the General
Land Office, after a further examination of the case in May and June 1907, concurred
m the decision of the Justice Department. For five years thereafter the matter
dropped from public view until it was made the subject of a public hearing held by
the House Committee on Expenditures m the Interior Department. At that time the
committee, after examining extended evidence, found by a vote of 5 to 2 that
Senator Warren had been guilty of the illegal enclosure of public lands. One of the
two dissenting congressmen was a representative from Wyoming.

The Warren Live Stock Company case, an illuminating episode in itself, is of
particular importance because it caused the departure from the Cabinet, after nine

445

4093 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Printed 1

Telegram Washington, October 7, 1906

I approve your conclusion as to indemnification of owner of horses. 2 Con-
gratulate you on way things are going. Earnestly hope you can get back
here within a fortnight as I need you very much on several matters.

years in office, of the Secretary of the Interior. Hitchcock, believing absolutely
in the guilt of Francis Warren, believed equally that Roosevelt failed to prosecute
the senator from Wyoming for political reasons. To him the decision of the Depart-
ment of Justice and the President’s support of that decision meant the end of
Presidential support for the Secretary’s policies in the West. To this feeling of
official rejection, a sense of profound personal disappointment was added Like others
before and after him the Secretary concluded that Theodore Roosevelt had in fair
weather spurred him on a course of probity and honor in government along which, m
foul weather, the President did not care to follow. Persisting in his conviction that
Senator Warren was guilty, refusing to connive, as he felt, in arrangements that
illegally increased the power of the Warren Live Stock Company, he took such a
position against the President that both agreed he must withdraw from the Cabmet.

There is much to support the Secretary’s assumption, and, since he held this
assumption, much more to commend m his action It seems altogether probable, m
the absence of legal proof, that the findings of Hintze and Lmnen m the case of the
Warren Live Stock Company were accurate enough, it is further apparent that m
the year 1907 the President had a more restive and insubordinate Senate to deal with
than ever before, it is obvious that Francis Warren was a man of enormous prestige
and power in the West and in the Senate. All these thmgs, and some gossip that
remams from these years, suggest that the Hitchcock view of Roosevelt’s action
is correct — that the President dropped a principle to save a powerful senator’s face
and to strengthen his own hold on the Senate It is possible.

Against this view however may be set other considerations The 'Attorney
General had found the evidence presented by Lmnen and Hmtze inconclusive, to
the natural disposition of a President to rely on the opinion of his Department of
Justice must have been added, in this case, the recollection that m the past lurid and
alarming reports made by agents of the Secretary of the Interior of misdemeanors
in the West had proved not only inconclusive but untrue On these grounds alone
the President could have justified himself. There were also other equally compelling
grounds Secretary Hitchcock was a man of great rectitude who sought to apply the
land laws m the West with the assured fervor of an Old Testament prophet. Un-
happily he possessed also some of the humorless suspicion and rigidity or the prophet,
and, what was worse in a Cabinet officer of Theodore Roosevelt, he was a poor
administrator. The President, long before 1907, had been disturbed by the affairs
of the Interior Department The Keep Commission report, the unauthorized and
unfortunate investigation of Governor Frantz, the Secretary’s mistaken interpreta-
tions of Roosevelt’s coal-land withdrawal orders (see Numbers 4166, 4168, 4219), all
combined to increase the President’s rismg distrust of Hitchcock’s management. The
Warren case simply precipitated what was an inevitable crisis. That it served as the
efficient cause of the Secretary’s departure after long and honorable service is most
unfortunate It was an unhappy tangle — leaving behind that confusion of mtent,
motive, and moral judgment which must always arise when the charges of guilty or
not guilty remam unproved.

House Report , 62 Cong, 3 sess., no. 1335, contains a summation of the Linnen
report, Attorney General Moody’s decision, the important correspondence between
Roosevelt and Hitchcock, and the opinions of the House committee. Only a few
of Roosevelt’s letters on this subject are therefore reprinted m this volume.

1 House Document , 59 Cong., 2 sess , no. 2, p. 489.

“Taft’s “horse order” was perhaps the most controversial act of his short term as
provisional governor of Cuba. It permitted the rebels to retain temporary possession

446

4094 * TO JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN Roosevelt MSS.

Private and personal Washington, October 8, 1906

My dear Sherman ; Since you left this morning I succeeded in getting hold
of the letters to which I referred, and I send you a copy of Governor Odell’s
letter to me of December 10, 1904.

As I am entirely willing that you should show this letter to Mr. E. H.
Harriman, I shall begin by repeating what you told me he said to you on
the occasion last week when you went to ask him for a contribution to the
campaign. You informed me that he then exprest great dissatisfaction with
me and said, in effect, that as long as I was at the head of the Republican
party or as it was dominated by the policies which I advocate and represent,
he would not support it, and was quite indifferent whether Hearst beat
Hughes or not, whether the Democrats carried Congress or not. He gave as
a reason for his personal dislike of me partly my determination to have the
railroads supervised, and partly the alleged fact that after promising him to
appoint Depew Ambassador to France I failed to do it; and, I understood you
to say, that he alleged that I made this promise at a time when he had come
down to see me in Washington, when I requested him to raise two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for the Republican presidential campaign which
was then on. Any such statement is a deliberate and wilful untruth — by
rights it should be characterized by an even shorter and more ugly word. I
never requested Mr. Harriman to raise a dollar for the presidential campaign
of 1904. On the contrary, our communications as regards the campaign re-
lated exclusively to the fight being made against Mr. Higgins for Governor
of New York, Mr. Harriman being immensely interested m the success of
Mr. Higgins because he regarded the attack on Higgins as being really an
attack on him, Mr. Harriman, and on his friend, Governor Odell; and he was
concerned only in getting me to tell Mr. Cortelyou to aid Mr. Higgins so far
as he could, which I gladly did. He also (I think more than once) urged me
to promise to make Senator Depew Ambassador to France, giving me in
detail the reasons why this would help Governor Odell, by pleasing certain
big financial interests. I informed him that I did not believe it would be
possible for me to appomt Mr. Depew, and furthermore exprest my surprise
at his saying that the men representing the big financial interests of New
York wisht that appointment made, inasmuch as a number of them had
written to me asking that the same place be given to Mr. Hyde, and that as
a matter of fact, while I was not prepared to announce any decision, I
doubted whether I could appoint either Mr. Depew or Mr. Hyde to the
place. As soon as Mr. Harriman heard that Mr. Hyde was a candidate and
had asked the names of his backers, he hastily said that he did not wish to be

of the horses they had appropriated. Unfortunately the “horse certificates” that were
issued implied that the rebels had received permanent title The legitimate owners
were later allowed damages, but few of them, realizing this, presented claims, see
Fitzgibbon, Cuba , p. 124

447

understood as antagonizing Mr. Hyde and would be quite willing to support
him, and tho I understood that he still preferred Mr. Depew, he left me
strongly under the impression that he would be almost as well satisfied with
Mr. Hyde, and was much discontented at my informing him so positively,
not once but repeatedly, that I did not think I should be able to appoint
either.

His and my letters now before me of the fall of 1904 run as follows. On
his return from spending the summer in Europe, on September 20th, he
wrote me stating that if I thought it desirable he would come to see me at any
time, either then or later (he had been, as you remember, a delegate to the
Republican National Convention, having voted for my nomination). On
September 23d I answered this letter, saying,

At present there is nothing for me to see you about, tho there were one or
two points in my letter of acceptance which I should have liked to discuss with
you before putting it out.

On October 10th I wrote him,

In view of the trouble over the State ticket in New York, I should much
like to have a few words with you. Do you think you can get down here within
a few days and take either lunch or dinner with me P

The trouble I spoke of had reference to the bolt against Higgins — that is in
reality against Mr. Harriman and Mr. Harriman’s friend, Governor Odell.
A reference to the files of the New York papers at that time will show that
there was a very extensive bolt against Mr. Higgins upon the ground that
Governor Odell had nominated him, and that he had in some matter favored
Mr. Harriman overmuch — neither ground, in my judgment, being tenable.
Mr. Harriman’s backing of Governor Odell and extreme anxiety that he
should win out by securing Higgins’ election, was a matter of common
notoriety and mentioned in all the papers, notably in the New York Sun .
On October 1 2th Mr. Harriman wrote me —

I am giving a very large part of my time to correcting the trouble here, and
intend to do so if any effort on my part can accomplish it. * * * I will take oc-
casion the first of next week to run down to see you, and think by that time the
conditions will be very much improved

After receiving this letter I wrote Mr Harriman the following letter, which
I give in full-

Personal

October 14, 1904.

My dear Mr, Harriman

A suggestion has come to me m a roundabout way that you do not think it
wise to come on to see me m these closing weeks of the campaign, but that you
are reluctant to refuse, inasmuch as I have asked you. Now, my dear sir, you and
I are practical men, and you are on the ground and know the conditions better
than I do. If you think there is any danger of your visit to me causing trouble,

448

Paul Morton

William Crawford Gorgas

George Washington Goethals

Charles Evans Hughes

* *,

Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit

or if you think there is nothing special I should be informed about, or no matter
in which I could give aid, why of course give up the visit for the time being and
then a few weeks hence, before I write my message, I shah get you to come
down to discuss certain government matters not connected with the campaign.

With great regard,

Sincerely yours.

You will see that this letter is absolutely incompatible with any theory that
I was asking Mr. Harriman to come down to see me in my own interest, or
intended to make any request of any kind for help from him. On the contrary
all I was concerned with in seeing him was to know if I could be of help in
securing the election of Mr. Higgms — a man for whom I had the highest
respect, and who I believed would be, as in fact he has been, a most admirable
Governor.

Moreover, the following letter will show that Mr. Harriman did not have
in his mind any idea of my asking him to collect money, and that on the
contrary what he was concerned about in connection with my letter to him
was the allusion I made to the fact that I would like to see him before I wrote
my message to discuss certain government matters not connected with the
campaign. His letter, which is of November 30th, runs as follows:

Dear Mr. President:

I have just had a telephone talk with Mr. Loeb, and requested him to give you
a message from me,

I drew his attention to the last paragraph of your letter to me of October 14th,
last, and explained that of course I did not want to make a trip to Washington
unless it should be necessary 7 , that the only matter I know of, and about which I
had any 7 apprehension, and which might be referred to m y r our coming message to
Congress, is that regarding the Interstate Commerce Commission, and what the
attitude of the railroads should be towards it.

I have communications from many 7 conservative men in the West, asking me
to take the matter up, they having, which I have not, information as to what you
propose to say m your message on that subject, and I am very apprehensive about
it.

Mr. Loeb stated he believed that that part of the message could be sent to me,
and I hope that he will do so I sincerely believe it would be best for all interests
that no reference be made to the subject, and in any 7 event if referred to in such a
way 7 as not to bring about increased agitation. It is, as y T ou well know, the con-
servative element, and the one on which we all relv, which is the most seldom
heard from.

Yours sincerely,

This letter to me was crossed by one from me, which reads as follows:

Strictly 7 personal. November 30, 1904.

My dear Mr. Harriman.

Mr. Loeb tells me that you called me up today on the telephone and recalled
mv letter to y r ou of October 14th m which I spoke to y 7 ou of a desire to see you
before sending in my message as I wanted to go over with you certain govera-

449

mental matters, and you added that you had heard that I had referred to the
Interstate Commerce Commission; that you regretted this and wished I had left it
out. In writing to you I had in view, especially, certam matters connected with
currency legislation, and had not thought of discussing railroad matters with you.
However, if it had occurred to me, I should have been delighted to do so; but
if you remember when you were down here both you and I were so interested in
certain of the New York political developments that I hardly, if at all, touched on
governmental matters. As regards what I have said in my message about the
Interstate Commerce Commission, while, as I say, I should have been delighted
to go over it with you, I must also frankly say that my mind was definitely made
up. Certain revelations connected with the mvestigation of the beef trust caused
me to write the paragraph in question. I went with extreme care over the informa-
tion in possession of the Interstate Commerce Commission and of the Bureau of
Corporations before writing it I then went over the written paragraph again
and again with Paul Morton, who is of all my Cabinet the man most familiar with
railroad matters of course, and with Root, Knox, Taft and Moody. It is a matter
I had been carefully considering for two years, and had been gradually tho reluc-
tantly coming to the conclusion that it is unwise and unsafe from every stand-
point to leave the question of rebates where it now is, and to fail to give the
Interstate Commerce Commission additional power of an effective kind in regulat-
ing these rates.

Let me repeat that I did not have this question in mind when I asked you to
come down, but that I should most gladly have talked it over with you if it had
occurred to me to do so; but as a matter of fact, as you will remember, when you
did come down to see me, you and I were both so engaged in the New York
political situation that we talked of little else; and finally that the position I have
taken has not been taken lightly, but after thinking over the matter and looking
at it from different standpoints for at least two years, and after the most careful
consultation with Morton, Taft, Moody, Knox, and Root, as to the exact
phraseology I should use.

I do not send you a copy simply because I have given no one a copy, not even
the men above mentioned. It is impossible if I give out copies of any portions of
my message to prevent the message being known in advance; and the three press
associations who now have the message are under a heavy penalty not to disclose
a word of it before the appointed time.

Sincerely yours.

On December 2d he wrote me the following letter on the same subject:

December 2, 1904.

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you for your favor of the 30th.

It was natural for me to suppose that railroad matter would be included in
any discussion you and I might have before writing your message. I am of the
opinion that an effective Interstate Commerce Commission could regulate the
matter of rebates, and absolutely prevent the same, without any additional power
of any kind, and, as you say, Paul Morton is more familiar with such matters
than anyone else in your Cabinet, and I believe he will agree with me in this. I
fear there has been a lack of co-operation.

During the enormous development of the last four years, the railroads have
found it very hard to keep pace with the requirements imposed upon them, and
the so-called surplus earnings, as well as additional capital, have been devoted to

450

providing additional facilities and the bettering and enlarging of their properties,
so as to give the increased and better service required of them. This work of
betterment and enlargement must go on, and is all-important for the proper de-
velopment of all sections of the country. There is little doubt that during the next
decade every single-track railroad in tie country will have to be double-tracked
and provide enlarged terminal and other facilities, and any move that will tend to
cripple them financially would be detrimental to all interests over the whole
country.

I beg that you will pardon my not signing this personally, as I have to leave to
catch my train for Arden, and have asked my Secretary to sign it for me.

Yours sincerely.

I was unable to agree with Mr. Harriman’s views on the matter, and left
my message unchanged as regards the interstate commerce law. (The rough
draft of this portion of the message was completed in October, before the
election.) I had always discussed with absolute freedom all my proposed
moves in the trust and labor matters with the representatives of the big
combinations or big railroads as well as with the leaders of the labor men, of
the farmers’ organizations, the shippers’ organizations, and the like — that is,
I had as freely seen and communicated with Mr. Harriman, Mr. Morgan,
Mr. Hill and other railroad men as I had seen and communicated with Mr.
Gompers, Mr. Keefe, Mr. Morrissey, Mr. Morrison and other labor leaders.
Mr. Harriman had, like most of the big railroad men, always written me very
strongly protesting against my proposed course as regards the supervision and
control over big combinations and especially over the big railroads — in a
letter of his of August 19, 1902, for instance, he expressed the fear that a
panic would follow my proposed action.

It will be seen that the above correspondence is entirely incompatible
with what Mr. Harriman now, as you inform me, alleges as to my having
asked him to secure money or to subscribe money for the Presidential cam-
paign. As for the Depew matter he professed thruout to be acting in the
interest of Governor Odell, and tho Governor Odell had been anxious that
Mr. Depew should be nominated as Ambassador to France at a time when he
was supporting Governor Black for Senator, he had changed his mind
shortly after the last letter to me, above quoted, from Mr. Harriman, and on
December 10th wrote me the letter I enclose which reads in part as follows:

My dear Mr. President:

A great many of your friends here in New York would be very much de-
lighted and pleased if you could find it possible to appoint Mr. James H. Hyde as
Minister to France. * * * Large business interests have given to him splendid
executive abilities and his association with so many prominent businessmen would
be fitting recognition of the effective work done by them in the last campaign.

In addition to this he has behind him, I am sure, the approval of Senator
Platt and Senator Depew and, so far as I can speak for the organization, I be-
lieve his appointment would be, without question, more satisfactory than any
that could be made from New York at the present time.

Personally, I should appreciate your favorable consideration of this suggestion

almost beyond anything else you could do for me. If you so desire, I shall be glad
to come down to Washington and talk with you about it but I believe there are
others who are close to you and who feel just as I do and I thought therefore that
this letter would be sufficient as showing the attitude of the organizations and
myself personally upon this important appointment.

As you know I was obliged to refuse the request of the New York financiers
and of the Republican organizations of the State and city, not deeming it
proper to appoint Mr. Hyde to the position he sought.

So much for what Mr. Harriman said about me personally. Far more
important are the additional remarks he made to you, as you inform me,
when you asked him if he thought it was well to see Hearstism and the like
triumphant over the Republican party. You inform me that he told you that
he did not care in the least, because those people were crooks and he could
buy them; that whenever he wanted legislation from a State legislature he
could buy it; that he “could buy Congress” and that if necessary he “could
buy the judiciary.” This was doubtless said partly in boastful cynicism and
partly in a mere burst of bad temper because of his objection to the interstate
commerce law and to my actions as President. But it shows a cynicism and
deep-seated corruption which make the man uttering such sentiments, and
boasting, no matter how falsely, of his power to perform such crimes, at least
as undesirable a citizen as Debs, or Moyer, or Haywood. It is because we
have capitalists capable of uttering such sentiments and capable of acting on
them that there is strength behind sinister agitators of the Hearst type. The
wealthy corruptionist, and the demagog who excites, in the press or on the
stump, in office or out of office, class against class and appeals to the basest
passions of the human soul, are fundamentally alike and are equally enemies
of the Republic. I was horrified, as was Root, when you told us today what
Harriman had said to you. As I say, if you meet him you are entirely wel-
come to show him this letter, altho of course it must not be made public
unless required by some reason of public policy, and then only after my
consent has first been obtained. Sincerely yours

4095 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 8, 1906

Dear Cabot: Your speech was excellent, and I do wish you would tell Mr.
Bates how much I liked his speech. Surely he knows the regard and respect I
have for him.

Perhaps you are right about its having been proper for me to bear down
harder upon Hearst and Moran, or upon their type, in my Harrisburg speech.
But of course it was a speech that I hoped would do good to the party, and
I did not know how far it was wise to go in denouncing our opponents by
name Moreover, I have been more shocked than I can say by the attitude of
some of the corporation men within the last two or three weeks. Last week

45 2

Jim Sherman called upon E. H. Harriman to ask for a contribution. Harriman
declined flatly to give anything. He said he had no interest in the Republican
party and that in view of my action toward the corporations he preferred the
other side to win. Sherman told him that the other side was infinitely more
hostile to corporations than we were; that all we were doing was to be
perfectly honest with them, decline to give them improper favors, and so on,
and that Harriman would have to fear, as other capitalists would have to
fear, the other side more than us. To this Harriman answered that he was not
in the least afraid, that whenever it was necessary he could buy a sufficient
number of Senators and Congressmen or State legislators to protect his inter-
ests, and when necessary he could buy the Judiciary. These were his exact
words. He did not say this under any injunction of secrecy to Sherman,
and showed a perfectly cynical spirit of defiance thruout, his tone being that
he greatly preferred to have in demagogs rather than honest men who treated
them fairly, because when he needed he could purchase favors from the
former. At the same time the Standard Oil people informed Penrose that
they intend to support the Democratic party unless I call a halt in the suits
begun against the Standard Oil people, notably a suit which Moody is in-
clined to recommend; and they gave the same reason as Harriman, namely
that rather than have an administration such as the present they would prefer
to have an administration of Bryans or Hearsts, because they could make
arrangements with them — they did not use the naked brutality of language
which Harriman used, but they did state in substance that they could buy
what favors they needed.

In New York this year, in securing the election of Parsons over Quigg,
and the triumph in Brooklyn of the anti-Odell forces, the chief dangers we
encountered were caused by the lavish use of Harriman and Ryan money by
Quigg and Odell, and many of the Wall Street financiers quite openly say
they would just as leave have Hearst as Hughes, their attitude being that they
object as much to the discovery of rascality and the suppression of bribery
and theft as they do to blackmail & robbery. Do you wonder that I feel
pretty hot with them? Of course I could not feel hotter with them than I
do with the Hearsts and Morans; and in this same speech you may have
noticed that I spoke of demagogs and agitators just as I did of reactionaries.
Always yours

4096 - TO OSCAR SOLOMON STRAUS RoOSCVelt MSS .

Washington, October 9, 1906

My dear Mr . Straus; You would do me a favor if you would call on Mr.
Hughes or on Mr. Parsons or Mr. Woodruff and see if there is not some way
in which you could be of assistance in preventing the East Side vote — no-
tably among the Jews — from going for Hearst. He has completely misled

453

those poor people over there. I earnestly hope you can do this. Sincerely
yours

4097 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Telegram Washington, October 10, 1906

We anticipated that there would be occasion from the Cuban point of view
to make some additions to proclamation, but it seems desirable to avoid too
much proclamation, and as you have issued one we think you better not
issue another. We suggest insertion in Magoon’s proclamation of something
as follows: “The policy declared and the assurances given by my predecessor,
Secretary Taft, will be strictly adhered to.” 1 The government which Con-
gress finds in force will of course be called in question and we think it desir-
able that the action taken should be now based expressly upon the act of
Congress and the treaty. Your view that army officers should receive nothing
from Cuban treasury either for compensation or commutation, and that ex-
pense of quarters should be paid by Cuba, is approved. It seems better to have
a lump sum paid out of the Cuban treasury to our quartermaster, to be
applied to construction &c of quarters and accounted for as a special trust
fund rather than to pay from U. S. funds and rely upon reimbursement.
The former seems within the power of the Provisional Governor and the
other of doubtful legality.

4098 • TO TIMOTHY LESTER WOODRUFF Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 11, 1906

My dear Woodruff: Many thanks for your letter. I hope Oscar Straus has
by this time called on you. I enclose you a letter from a man who knows
what he is talking about. 1 If Cannon goes into the State he ought to be
warned on no account to say a word about Gompers.

I also enclose another letter from an editor of the World ? I do wish
you would show both these letters to Hughes. I do not think we would gain
anything by bringing national Republicans into the State. I think we want
to make our fight on the State issues. Thus, in most States, I believe it
strengthens the ticket to have it said that the fight is primarily to endorse
my administration. But m New York we want to get tens of thousands of
people to vote for Hughes who do not approve of my administration or of
the Republican Party from the national standpoint, and we should be scrupu-

1 Magoon’s proclamation of October 13, 1906, issued when he took office as pro-
visional governor, contained the sentence Roosevelt had suggested, see Foreign
Relations , 1906, p. 494.

1 Ralph M. Easley.
* Frank Haverty

454

lously careful not to scare away these men. In this campaign we need home
talent, not outsiders. Sincerely yours

4099 • TO AUGUSTUS PEABODY GARDNER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 12, 1906

My dear Gussie: If I comment upon the declaration of the Massachusetts
Federation of Labor against the Republican candidates for Congress in that
State, I shall have to comment upon similar declarations against Republican
candidates for Congress in every State. I have already publicly stated my
own attitude on the Panama eight-hour business, and I should suppose that
all that would be necessary would be to quote that again. I have been del-
uged with requests from Congressmen to come out for them individually, or
to deal with matters in which they are personally attacked. If I do it in one
case I have got to do it in all. I tried to cover the business in my Watson
letter. The Federations of Labor have attacked almost all our congressmen. 1
Faithfully yours

4100 • TO JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN RoOSCVelt Mss .

Washington, October 12, 1906

My dear Mr. Sherman: I would like to make an addendum to my letter to
you of the other day. Both Mr. Cortelyou and Mr. Bliss, as soon as they
heard that Hyde's name had been suggested for Ambassador, protested to
me against the appointment. Sincerely yours

4101 • to william sowden sims Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, October 13, 1906

My dear Captain Sims : I have had a most interesting talk with Lee, recently
Civil Lord of the Admiralty in Great Britain. He takes, from knowledge
acquired by the British representatives with the Japanese fleet, exactly the
ground you took in your paper as to the imperative necessity of having
twenty-thousand-ton ships, with turbines, making a speed of twenty-five
knots and heavily armored, divided into absolutely watertight compart-
ments, and carrying say eight twelve-inch guns and then a battery of light
guns for torpedo boats. He says that ordinary ships will be absolutely pow-
erless before these ships. Furthermore, he says that the British target practice
is now at what they call battle ranges, that is at five to seven thousand yards;
and that they do not regard short-range practice as of any real value, at least
compared to long-range practice. What do you think of this, and what are
the maximum ranges at which our ships practice 5 Sincerely yours

1 Roosevelt, after some vacillation, rejected Gardner’s later requests for a special
letter, see No 4106

455

4102 • TO WILLIAM THOMAS O’NEIL

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, October 14, 1906

Dear Billy: By George, I am as pleased as Punch! I only wish it was to Con-
gress instead of the State Senate. 1 Good for you! After election write me a
line, so that if things, as I believe, go right, I will be able to send you a per-
sonal introduction to Hughes. Sincerely yours

4103 • TO TIMOTHY LESTER WOODRUFF Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 14, 1906

My dear Governor Woodruff: I am sending this letter to you as well as to
Parsons and Sherman. I got somewhat contradictory accounts as to what is
wanted in New York. Some very excellent advisers, especially those who are
interested in securing as big a Democratic vote for Hughes as possible, are
extremely nervous about having any national politics injected into the situa-
tion and for this reason do not wish Shaw or Beveridge to speak, do not
wish Cannon to speak, and some of them even feel very doubtful about hav-
ing Root come over to speak. On the other hand I have other advisers who
insist that it is necessary to keep the Republicans interested and that Root
should by all means come over, and that Cannon cannot only do great good
in the country districts (and I believe all are a unit on this point) but that
he can do real good in New York City, and they wish him to speak at Dur-
land’s Academy. Again there are two or three people whose opinion should
carry some weight who insist that it is dangerous to allow the Hearst sup-
porters to believe that Hearst and I really stand for substantially the same
thing, and that every effort should be made to show that Hearst and I are
as far apart as the poles, and that Hughes is in a peculiar sense a representa-
tive of precisely those policies and principles which I have closest at heart,
and that Hearst’s victory would be a smashing defeat for the administration,
while on the other hand there are doubtless Democrats, mugwumps and anti-
imperialists who sincerely wish to beat Hughes, but to whom I am anathema
marentha. Just this afternoon I have talked the situation over with Cannon
and Watson, and of course I have discust it at length with Root. Now, I
want you all three to understand clearly that Cannon and Root and I are
concerned with absolutely one thing and one thing only m this matter,
namely: the election of Hughes. If this result can best be secured by drop-
ping my name absolutely out of the contest and keeping Cannon and Root
away from New York City, why then that is the course we most earnestly
desire. If on the other hand it pays to keep my name in the contest and to
bring Cannon and Root to New York City, act accordingly. The affair is
altogether too serious and the need to triumph too great to permit any heed
being paid to tomfoolery, we are practical men, and all we want to know

1 O’Neil had been nominated and was elected to the State Senate.

is what will help most to achieve victory. Please remember that I speak for
Root and Cannon just as much as for myself, and that you need not have the
slightest thought of hurting the feelings of any of us.

Now, with this end in view I think you three should get together and
go over the situation thoroly. Of course it is puzzling, and of course any
course has its disadvantages, and all we can hope is to adopt the course which
on the whole will be most advantageous. If Cannon speaks he will not make
any allusion to Gompers. He will simply talk enough about what Congress
has done to keep the Republican people enthusiastic and will devote the
burden of his speech to showing that we are heartily for the welfare of the
workingman and the welfare of the farmer; that our opponents, Hearst and
his like, are shams and only talk about what we actually do, and that our
performance must be put against their promise; and he also intends, if he
speaks in New York City, to take strong ground along the lines which he
took last year as regards immigration. I think you should consult Congress-
men Olcott and Bennet 1 and find out whether, as I understand to be the
case, they think they will be materially helped by such a speech in New
York by Cannon. If there is serious question whether he will do good in
New York City, then cancel his engagement at Durland’s and put him on
that night in some upcountry strong Republican district, by preference a
country district, letting him speak for instance in St. Lawrence County or
Chautauqua where he can arouse the farmers, give enthusiasm, and close up
the Republican ranks. Use him at any place you deem best.

In the same way settle what you feel to be wise about Root; and deter-
mine whether or not it is well to make the fight clear and sharp upon the
ground that in his policies for the State Mr. Hughes stands for just what I
stand for as regards the internal affairs of the Nation. If possible I think
Hughes should be consulted on all of this. Only for Heaven’s sake make him
understand that I do not care a rap whether my name is referred to or not
so long as we achieve the victory. If we carry Hughes it is my triumph, be-
cause it is the triumph of all of us, and if we lose him, then it is a defeat for
all of us; whereas one week after the campaign is closed nobody will remem-
ber whether my name was or was not mentioned on the stump, whether
Root and Cannon did or did not speak, or what the arguments for and
against Hughes were — all that will be remembered is the victory or the
defeat.

I do not suppose it is possible to get hold of Cortelyou over the long
distance telephone, but if possible I should advise you to consult him. He
has a cool head and good judgment, and there might be one or two points
which he could help clear up. At any rate, do get together and talk with
some men of good judgment, men some of whom should not be of the swal-

1 Jacob Van Vechten Olcott, Republican congressman from New York, 1905-1911,

and W illiam Stiles Bennet, Republican congressman from New York, 1905-1911,

t9ij-i9i7

457

low tail section, and then make up your minds how Root and Cannon and
I can be used to best purpose. Sincerely yours

4104 • TO ARTHUR HAMILTON LEE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 15, 1906

My dear Lee: Let me thank you for having come across the ocean at my
request to see me and for your kindly consenting to repeat, as I have desired
that you should, the statements that I have made to you as regards The
Hague conference, the Newfoundland fisheries, the seal fisheries, the Chi-
nese Customs, the Russo-Japanese peace negotiations, the Algeciras negotia-
tions and the Venezuela matter. You will also explain to the one or two
people with whom you talk why I have adopted this irregular method of
communication. I could, of course, only have adopted it thru some man like
yourself, or Spring Rice, or possibly Munro Ferguson; that is, thru some
man whom I knew well and in whose judgment no less than his discretion
I had complete confidence. You and I have campaigned together. You stand
for your country’s interests first; and I should not respect you if this were
not the case. But so far as is compatible with first serving the interests of
your country you have a genuine desire to do what is friendly to America.
These are the reasons why I asked you to come over to see me and have
made you my channel of communication. Remember that you are to come
here to lunch so as to meet Root again and also Taft and Bacon, before you
return home. Sincerely yours

4105 - TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, October 16, 1906

Dear Cabot: I thought your answer to Weld very good. 1 I do not know
what the Boston Herald said; 2 I never see the Herald and have no communi-
cation with it. I suppose it was some article based on my Harrisburg speech.
Before delivering that speech I gave it to Knox to go over, and he stated
that he thought it was the strongest speech I had ever made. Similarly, Root
has gone over my message, and he thinks what I have said about the inher-
itance tax, corporations, and so forth, better than anything I have yet said,
and cordially endorses it. I suppose Weld would class Root and Knox as
fellow-anarchists of mine. Incidentally, Moody cordially approves of what
I have said (he and Root making one reservation) and can tell you when
you see him anything you would like to hear.

Now as to your feeling that I have recently dwelt too strongly upon the

1 Lodge had written Stephen Minot Weld, Boston merchant, Union General, Re-
publican, on the menace of Hearst and Moran.

J The Boston Herald on October 6 had printed a nasty editorial criticizing Roosevelt’s
Harrisburg speech.

458

necessity for curbing and controlling the great trusts, while not making any
attack upon the demagog and agitator. Before my Harrisburg speech the
last speech of importance I made, as well as I can now remember, was my
muckrake speech. It is too much to expect you to keep in mind the different
speeches that I make; — thy servant is not a Beveridge and does not expect
such things. But I send you a copy of it. If you will read over pages 32 to 38
inclusive; if you will glance at what I say, for instance, on pages 24, 25 and
26; and, indeed, if you will look thru the address, I think you will see that
it is aimed far more at agitators, at corrupt or sinister or foolish visionaries,
at reckless slanders in the newspapers and magazines, and at preachers of
social unrest and discontent, than it is at capitalists. I do not remember lay-
ing any very great stress on this subject in any speeches that intervened be-
tween this and my letter to Watson, which speeches were few in number; I
think only two or three all told. The letter to Watson was an account of the
achievements of the last Congress. It was of course drawn with reference to
the supposed needs of the general country, but apparently at the time was
considered to meet the situation pretty fairly. If you will turn to the Repub-
lican campaign book you will see that I had included therein an account of
my actions against labor where I deemed labor was wrong. For instance, it
contains my full interview with Gompers and his committee last year; it con-
tains my action about the open shop; and I think it contains my action about
the Chicago strike — in all of which I think you will agree that I took just
as emphatically a position against the misdeeds of labor as I ever have against
the misdeeds of capital.

This brings me down to the Harrisburg speech. If I had delivered it in
New York or Massachusetts I could have made just such an attack as you
advise on Hearstism or Moranism without using either name. In Pennsyl-
vania the situation was entirely different. There the danger is really not from
any Hearst or Bryan movement, but from a movement of genuine, altho I
think misguided, reformers whose justifiable indignation at the antics of the
Republican machine in the past has led them into taking what I regard as
unwise action in the present. Against Hearst I think I did the most effective
thing that it was in my power to do when I secured the nomination of
Hughes. Surely in the muckrake speech I have described Hearst as well as I
could without naming him, just as on page 25 of that speech I have described
the labor leaders who were trying to excite class feeling on account of
Moyer and Haywood in Idaho. I have never in any of these speeches named
any trust magnate or specified any trust, so far as I remember, and neither
have I ever named any particular agitator — Hearst, Moran, Gompers, or
anyone else. It does not seem to me that it would be wise to do so. Of course
I may be utterly mistaken in the action I am taking, but as yet I do not see
very well what more I can do than I am doing. Faithfully yours

P.S. In New York the feeling has been very strong among those best
competent to judge that the danger to Hughes is lest the people get the idea

459

that he does stand for the ultraconservatives, that he is the friend of the
corporations; that he is not sufficiently radical and resolute. If the people of
New York can be convinced of these things they will go for Hearst with an
overwhelming majority. The one chance for Hughes consists in making it
evident that he is a real reformer and Hearst merely a sham; that corrupt
corporations have to fear more from Hughes a great deal than from Hearst,
and that this is not Wall Street’s fight nor yet the fight of excellent imprac-
ticables like Weld. The Sun , Times and Evening Post in New York are of
no real help to Hughes. The newspaper that has done most for him is the
World . By the way, m my Harrisburg speech you may have noticed that I
took emphatic ground about Bryan’s government ownership, that is about
the great issue which he has produced Bryan is himself a national issue and
so I can deal with him; but you have no conception how hard it is to deal
with Hearst and Moran from a national standpoint.

[Handwritten] I enclose extracts from certain speeches of mine which
seem to me to cover the Moran & Hearst cases pretty fairly.

4106 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, October 20, 1906

Dear Cabot: After sending you the letter which I canceled by telegram, 1 Jim
Sherman came in. I happened to mention to him the letter I had sent and
found he strongly disapproved of it, and we then consulted Root, Taft,
Moody and Cortelyou about it. Jim Sherman felt very strongly that to an-
swer Gussie’s request about the Panama labor business would wake up an
issue which he did not think was hurting us much now, and any agitation
of which he should regret, while he thought my action would be resented
by a great many Congressmen who would think that it put them m the atti-
tude of having to seek shelter behind my cloak. I read part of Gussie’s letter
to him and he said that he did not believe any possible good would come
from my writing to reiterate what I had said, that they were handling cases
like this in a great many different districts and were being asked to have
letters from me in scores of districts, and that all that was necessary as re-
gards this business, or about the injunction business, was to send on slips to
the voters of the district the extracts which you will find on pages 63 and
64 of the Republican Campaign Text-Book , in which I put myself as clearly
on record as I well could on both subjects. He did not think that anything
I could say now would add strength to what I had already said, and he felt
that it might do harm. He felt that if the voters of Gussie’s district had for-
gotten about my letter to Watson, the National Committee could furnish
plenty of copies of it which could be used for them.

As for the second suggestion as to what I would do, namely, to write a

1 Roosevelt had agreed to write a letter endorsing Gardner’s stand on labor legisla-
tion but had then changed his mind

460

letter which would be really aimed at Hearst and Moran, he felt more doubt-
ful still. He feels that very possibly such a letter may be called for, but that
it should not be written unless it is absolutely necessary and unless they are
convinced that it will do good in New York as well as in Massachusetts, and
that I must be very careful not to take such a step until exactly the right
time has come. The others all agreed with him.

It is very unpleasant for me to have Gussie feel that I could do something
for him which I am not doing, and I write this only because Sherman from
the national standpoint so strongly felt what he exprest. Moody is to speak
in Gussie’s district. Surely that will make it clear how the administration
feels, and I understand that Moody has more influence than any other man
in that district. Always yours

4107 * TO TIMOTHY LESTER WOODRUFF RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 21, 1906

My dear Governor Woodruff: Mr. Woodward is in the classified service,
which differentiates his case sharply from all others.

Speak to Herbert Parsons about the Oscar Straus matter, and of course
see that under no circumstances any hint gets out save from me. Tell anyone
else that knows it about this. Unless there is real necessity I wish to prevent
its getting out until a week from today, Sunday, at the earliest, and then
only with my authority. 1 Sincerely yours

4108 • TO JUDSON CLAUDIUS CLEMENTS RoOSevelt MSS.

Washington, October 21, 1906

My dear Judge Clements ; 1 The enclosed correspondence explains itself. As
I understand it, you are about to make a thoro investigation of the Union
Pacific and Southern Pacific systems. I had not had my attention attracted
to anything specific done by the management of either until about the time
I received your report on the coal lands. I have since then heard from differ-
ent sources complaints of the management of the railroads in connection
with the grain elevators, and also complaints that the rates are improperly

1 The matter to which Roosevelt referred was the appointment of Oscar Straus to
succeed Cortelyou as Secretary of Commerce and Labor It was announced, with
other Cabinet changes, all effective as of March 4, 1907, on October 23. While
Straus was well qualified for the post, Roosevelt’s decision to appoint him clearly
rested m part on his concern for the Jewish vote m New York.

The new’ Cabinet was to be State, Ehhu Root, Treasury, George B. Cortelyou;
War, William H Taft, Justice, Charles J. Bonaparte, Post Office, George von L
-Meyer, Navy, Victor H Metcalf, Interior, James R. Garfield, Agriculture, James
Wilson, Commerce and Labor, Oscar S. Straus. The Garfield appointment was
announced a few’ days after the others

x Judson Claudius Clements, Democratic congressman from Georgia, 1881-1891,
Interstate Commerce Commissioner, 1892-1917.

461

high. It seems to me that these complaints are sufficiently widespread to
justify a thoro investigation. 3 In any event I should like the judgment of
your Commission in the matter. I know how busy you are, and I hate to
put an additional burden upon you. Sincerely yours

4109 • TO ARTHUR HAMILTON LEE Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 22, 1906

My dear Lee: You have spoken to me about Maurice Low, correspondent
of the London Post. He has again been making mischief about the New-
foundland matter. 1 * He is not only an utterly untrustworthy, untruthful little
slandermonger, but he seems to have the deliberate purpose of doing all he
can to make mischief between the two countries. I think that any paper that
employs him must be sanctioning this action. Sincerely yours

4110 • TO EDWARD GREY RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 22, 1906

My dear Sir Edward: Thru Bob Ferguson I have seen your letter. Instead of
answering your questions indirectly, I write you direct.

1 have been at my wits’ end to know what to do in that Hague matter,
and especially as to the question of the reduction of armaments. I shall be
sorry to see another Hague conference assemble and then disperse without
having made any real progress; and unfortunately the noisy visionaries whose
attention is always attracted by any movement of this kind, by their clamor-
ous insistence m advance on the impossible tend to discredit whatever is ac-
tually accomplished. We wish as far as we are able to prepare men’s minds
in advance for the fact that no conference, however successful, can do more

2 The “thorough investigation” was made by the Interstate Commerce Commission m
January and February 1907. On the basis of the commission’s findings, the govern-
ment brought suit under the Sherman Law for the dissolution of the Harnman lines
in the Southwest. The combination of those lines, m the opinion of William Z
Ripley, “stood for monopoly to the third power.” In 1911, however, the circuit
court for the District of Utah decided for the railroad. This decision the Supreme
Court overruled in December 1912 (226 U. S. 61) For thorough discussions of the
economic and legal aspects of the Harnman merger, including the effects of the
merger on rates and profits, see Ripley, Railroads , Finance and Organization (New
York, 1915), pp. 499-510, 561-570, Ripley, Railway Problems (1913 ed), ch. xxn.
Harriman’s biographer, little concerned with the economics of competition, con-
sidered the prosecution to be one episode in Roosevelt’s spiteful persecution of the
financier, see Kennan, Harnman, II, 213 ff.

1 Low had been attacking the provisional Anglo-American agreement concernmg the

Newfoundland fisheries. The refusal of the Senate to ratify the Hay-Bond treaty

had left that matter unsettled According to the agreement, the British government
revoked a Newfoundland statute restricting the size and type of net used by Ameri-
can fishermen. The Americans, m return, promised not to fish on Sundays. In the
opinion of Low and most Newfoundlanders, the Americans gamed more than they
gave.

462

than go a small way toward accomplishing what yon and I, and those who
feel like us, in public life, desire. We ought certainly to be able to develop
some plan which would increase the chances of mediation and arbitration as
regards matters which, without such mediation and arbitration, would tend
to produce war. Here, however, I am myself embarrassed owing to the pe-
culiar constitution of our Government and the great difficulty of getting the
Senate to allow the President anything like a free hand in such matters; while
of course it does not represent any real advance for me, or anyone else, to
sign a general arbitration treaty which itself merely expresses a “pious opin-
ion” that there ought hereafter to be arbitration treaties whenever both par-
ties think they are advisable — and this was precisely the opinion that most
even of my own good friends in the Senate took as regards the last batch of
arbitration treaties which I sent them. All that I can say is that I will do my
best to get this Government to agree to any feasible scheme which will tend
to minimize the chances for war occurring without previous efforts to secure
mediation or arbitration.

As for the matter of disarmament, it is again difficult for us in America
to help you much, because we over here have only a corporal’s guard of an
army; and relatively to our wealth, population, and extent of territory, a
navy smaller than that of Germany or France. We have reduced our army
in size during the five years of my administration, and may have to add a
few thousand from time to time. But neither its recent decrease nor any
possible increase would be large enough to be so much as considered even
in England, not to speak of the military nations on the Continent or of Japan.
As to our navy, our conditions are so utterly different from yours that it is
very hard for us to advise in the matter. Our people as a whole are proud of
their navy and wish to see it kept up to a good point of efficiency, but they
naturally do not take any very expert view of the matter. All I have been
asking for or intend to ask for from Congress is that we shall keep on build-
ing at least one battleship every year, with when necessary colliers, dispatch
boats, torpedo destroyers, etc. The matter is of course far more vital to you
than to us, and I wouldn’t venture to give you too much advice. I endeavored
to communicate with the Emperor of Germany on the subject of the limita-
tion of armaments, making my communication in informal fashion, but have
received no real answer and do not expect to receive any. The King of Italy
was frank and reasonable, saying, what I entirely agree with, that of course
the ideal way to reduce the cost of armaments would be to agree not to in-
troduce any further improvements such as continually necessitate the throw-
ing aside of millions of rifles, thousands of cannon, and scores of ships; but
he added that he did not believe there was any chance of the adoption of
such a project, especially not by one great Continental power — which it
was entirely unnecessary for him to name. I have hoped that we could limit
the size of ships and am not yet convinced that this is impossible; but the
new big ships are unquestionably so much more efficient than the compara-

463

tively small ships even of the most recent date as to make it evident that your
own people, as well as some others, will be extremely reluctant to go into any
such movement unless they are sure that it will not result to their own dis-
advantage, and the practical difficulties in the way may be enormous. If we
can get an agreement by the various nations that no more than a certain
number of ships, agreed upon between them, will be built by anyone, that
might accomplish something. But here again we can do but little, for our
building program is not only, as is right and proper, far less than yours, but
I think far less than that of either Germany or France, or possibly even
Japan.

Baron d’Estoumelles de Constant has written a protest against holding
The Hague Conference at the present date at all for fear it will come to
nothing and ridicule be thus cast upon the whole movement, of which I
think there is real danger, especially having in view the studied failure of
the Czar in his invitation to the conference to speak of the question of the
reduction of armaments (a question which we in our answer reserved the
right to bring up). Each man must play the game his own way, and the meth-
ods I should follow may be utterly inapplicable to your conditions But if
d’Estoumelles de Constant, who is a good fellow who has legislative experi-
ence and is fairly reasonable, merely lived across the channel from me so
that I could get him to run across for a few hours, I would try to get hold
of him and see just what he means and just what he thinks is the practicable
course. This suggestion may be an utterly impossible one under the actual
circumstances.

I am sorry I have to write you in such unsatisfactory shape. I have had
a very nice visit from Arthur Lee, to whom I have told several things which
he is to repeat to you.

With all regard and good wishes, Sincerely yours

4 1 II - TO THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 23, 1906

To the Interstate Commerce Commission: Mr Brooks Adams has been to
see the Attorney General and does seem to make out a strong case of dis-
crimination by very high freight rates along the line of the railroads owned
by Mr. Hill, which, as I understand it, are the Great Northern, the Northern
Pacific, and the Burlington road. My attention was attracted to these roads
by Mr. Hill’s recent statement that the Northern Securities suit had made no
difference with him except that he had now to sign two certificates instead
of one. Does this mean that he is disobeying the terms of the decision? I am
also informed that the rates charged over his railroads are very unreasonable
because they are based upon the rates necessary to secure dividends upon the
market value of stocks inflated by the exorbitant rates hitherto charged. It
does not seem to me that if such be the case, the fact of improper inflation

464

should prevent the reduction of the rates to proper figures. In all this matter
my knowledge is too indefinite to permit of my giving any advice. I should
like to know what your view of the situation is. 1

4112 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 23, 1906

Dear Kerrnit: Archie is very cunmng and has handicap races with Skip. He
spreads his legs, bends over, and holds Skip between them. Then he says,
“On your mark, Skip; ready; go 1 ” and shoves Skip back while he runs as
hard as he possibly can to the other end of the hall; Skip scrabbling wildly
with his paws on the smooth floor until he can get started, when he races
after Archie, the object being for Archie to reach the other end before
Skip can overtake him.

It has rained hard for a week; but Mother and I have now and then
ridden, and on the days that I did not ride I have usually taken a rather
solemn hour’s walk in the darkness after six o’clock.

Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon came home from Cuba m good health and hav-
ing done a great work, but really tired out with the nervous strain. They
said they never could tell when those ridiculous dagos would flare up over
some totally unexpected trouble and start to cutting one another’s throats.

Mother and I are really going to Panama. Your loving father

[. Handwritten ] I was interested in what you said about the boys and the
Dickey. It is evident that Ted isn’t in, which must be hard for him, as all
his friends seem to be. I have’n’t heard from him. The bulberry jelly was
delicious, and I am so much obliged to you for it.

4113 • to iienry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 23, 1906

Dear Cabot . A very sensible observer m New York writes me as follows*

I am now convinced more than ever that Hearst represents the accumulation of
years of discontent. There is a deep-seated unrest and dissatisfaction with cor-
porate wealth and the use and abuse of it by men who have hitherto stood highest
m the public eye. Hearst represents the chance to get even So far as the mere
machinery and general operation of a campaign are concerned, ours is proceeding
vigorously, and if carried on, as it will be, to the last day, Hughes should be
elected by a good majority, — unless that spirit of discontent is far deeper rooted
and more widespread than any of us has been willing to believe. If that be so,
you are the only man in the public eye that could beat Hearst, because the people
have confidence m your sympathy with them, m the integrity of your purposes,

1 The Hill lines were, to a greater extent than the Harriman lines, a merger of
potentially competing railroads. Yet the ICC., apparently satisfied with such dis-
solution, or at least differentiation of management, as had been achieved m the
Northern Securities cases, took no further action against Hill.

465

and in your ability to meet what are regarded as the attacks by aggregate wealth
npon the very foundation of our democratic institutions.

One distinguished social worker said to me, “Why, Hughes has not even a
social platform,” by which he meant, a program of social reform or progress. That
is not quite true, because Hughes has certainly indicated certain lines on which
he would attempt social reforms, but that affirmative side of our campaign has
been, at least partially, obscured by abuse of and attacks upon Hearst.

This situation, if it really exist, will not be much changed by campaign work.
Nor do I think that either a letter or a statement from you would affect it, unless
it were a letter or statement of your confidence in Hughes’ intention and ability to
protect the plain people against any abuses. Such a statement I fear would be
regarded at once as a sign of weakness in the State campaign, and a reflection upon
Hughes and therefore indiscreet, — without even considering the possibility that
it might be treated as an incursion of the National Administration into State
affairs.

In other words, we are either confronted by the possible results of a social
urnrest far more extensive than we have heretofore believed existed, or else Hughes
will be elected by a good majority.

I send you what he says that is complimentary about me so that you may
understand that his feeling that I ought not to write a letter for Hughes is
not based upon distrust of me. Hitherto the men best competent to judge
seem to feel that such a letter as you think I ought to write would do harm
rather than good. Root most emphatically says so, and Cortelyou says that
at present that is his strong judgment, whatever the next week may produce
I do not remember any President having gone as far as I did in this cam-
paign; that is, any President having written a letter advocating the election
of a Republican Congress, as I did. Lincoln never wrote a letter against the
election of Vallandigham, or against the election of Seymour, or a campaign
letter at all. I am very reluctant to do anything that may result in harm in-
stead of good, and I think we must be extremely careful how we act. You
understand that just as strong pressure has been brought to bear upon me to
write letters for Republican candidates in Iowa, Pennsylvania, California,
Colorado, Nevada, Montana, and especially in Missouri, as in New York or
Massachusetts. Ever yours

4114 ■ TO HERBERT PARSONS Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 24, 1906

•My dear Ectrsons .* Most of the people whom I have consulted feel very
strongly that such action as you suggest would be a harm instead of a bene-
fit. Bijur and Reynolds both very strongly take this view. Root, Taft and
Cortelyou take it. They feel that I have gone as far as I can with safety go,
and that an utterance from us would have the directly opposite effect of
what is anticipated, besides being unfortunate in the ultimate results. Even
in the stress of the Civil War Lincoln never wrote or spoke against the
election of Vallandigham in Ohio or Seymour in New York. I should have

466

to in my letter include the Massachusetts situation just as much as the New
York situation; and it certainly looks to me as if it would be very awkward
to know how to discriminate from the Pennsylvania situation without not
only giving offence but causing great trouble, while I have refused a score
of requests to interfere on behalf of state candidates, and considerably over
a hundred to interfere in Congressional districts. Moreover, it seems to me
that this advice represents just the reverse of the attitude taken by all of you
before — an attitude which I understood Mr. Hughes to take — which was
that the fight should be confined to State issues. Of course the way to bring
the administration into the campaign was by having Root, Taft and Moody
speak. This those in charge of the campaign thought unwise; and men like
Frank Greene, Herman Ridder, 1 Bijur and others told me that their judg-
ment in the matter was shared by the bulk of the men they knew. Surely,
such being the case, it is an absurdity to have me write a letter. Please see
Cortelyou about it. He is in New York. Whichever was the best policy, it
seems to me clear that it is not advisable to change it at this date; and most
certainly I feel that harm would come from my being brought in. Sincerely
yours

4115 • TO JOHN REVELSTGKE RATHOM Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, October 24, 1906

My dear Mr. Rathom : 1 Please treat this letter as purely confidential because
it is utterly impossible for me to invite the correspondence which would
follow the knowledge that I was answering protests like yours. I am not
sure that Mr. Moody is going to Providence. I know he was obliged to cancel
one engagement there. In any event if he does go it will be, not to speak of
State issues, but to advocate the election of a Republican Congressman on
national issues in pursuance of an assignment by the Congressional Commit-
tee. It seems to me impossible that you should mean that there can be any
objection of any kind or sort toward, or anything but applause of, Mr.
Moody or any other member of the Cabinet speaking on behalf of the elec-
tion of Republican members of Congress. Are you not yourself supporting
them? Certainly this year unless you are committed to the national theories
of Mr. Bryan, Mr. Hearst, Mr. Moran and others, I assume that you are en-
deavoring to secure a majority of the House of Representatives which will
support the national administration; and unless there is assumption that the
national administration does not believe in its own acts, it would be a gross

1 Herman Ridder, German-American, Catholic, independent Democrat; longtime
political reformer, manager of the New York Staats-Zeitung^ which was supporting
Hughes, later active in Bryan’s campaign m 1908 and Wilson’s m 1912, treasurer of
the Associated Press, 1907-1909, president of the American Newspaper Publishers’
Association, 1907-1911.

1 John Revclstolte Rathom, journalist, at this time managing editor of the Providence
Journal , self-styled authority “on immigration and sociological subjects.”

and grave impropriety for members of the Cabinet not to appear on the
stump and {defend) ask the continuance in power of the party engaged in
carrying out the policies which they believe are essential to the welfare of
the Nation. You have probably seen the Democratic campaign book and
realize that it is largely filled with what its authors perfectly well know to
be slanderous untruths about the administration, and that it makes an appeal
for the sending of a Democratic Congress to Washington for the purpose of
hampering the administration. You must excuse me, my dear Mr. Rathom, if
I say that I do not understand how under such circumstances there can be
any question, not merely of the propriety, but of the duty, of Cabinet officers
taking part in the campaign, and also of the duty of outsiders, as I see it, to
support them. Sincerely yours

[. Handwritten ] I feel, of course, that we are entitled to the support not
merely of Republican but of all farseeing and patriotic American citizens.

4116 * TO JOHN ST. LOE STRACHEY RoOSevelt M.SS.

Personal & Pnvate Washington, October 25, 1906

My dear Strachey: I am always delighted to tell you anything I can. Of
course it is a little difficult for me to give you an exact historic judgment
about a man whom I so thoroly dislike and despise as I do Hearst. I think
that he is a man without any real principle, that tho he is posing as a radical,
he is in reality no more a radical than he is a conservative. But when I have
said this, after all, I am not at all sure that I am saying much more of Hearst
than could probably be said — or which would contain a large element of
truth if said — about both Winston Churchill and his father, Lord Randolph.
Hearst’s private life has been disreputable. He is now married, and as far as
I know, entirely respectable. His wife was a chorus girl or something like
that on the stage, and it is of course neither necessary nor advisable, in my
judgment, to make any allusion to any of the reports about either of them
before their marriage. It is not the kind of a family which people who be-
lieve that sound home relations form the basis of national citizenship would
be glad to see in the Executive Mansion in Albany, and still less m the White
House. But I think that only harm comes from any public discussion of, or
even allusion to, such a matter.

Hearst has edited a large number of the very worst type of sensational,
scandal-mongering newspapers. They have been edited with great ability and
with entire unscrupulousness. The editorials are well written, and often ap-
peal for high morality in the abstract. Moreover, being a fearless man, and
shrewd and farsighted, Hearst has often been of real use in attacking abuses
which benefited great corporations, and in attacking individuals of great
wealth who have done what was wrong. In these matters he has often led

468

the way, and honest men who are overconservative have been shocked and
surprised to find that they had to follow him. He will never attack any
abuse, any wickedness, any corruption, not even if it takes the most horrible
form, unless he is satisfied that no votes are to be lost by doing it. He
preaches the gospel of envy, hatred and unrest. His actions so far go to
show that he is entirely willing to sanction any mob violence if he thinks
that for the moment votes are to be gained by so doing. He of course cares
nothing whatever as to the results to the nation, in the long run, of embroil-
ing it with any foreign power, if for the moment he can gain any applause
for so doing. He cares nothing for the nation, nor for any citizens in it.

Mr. Bryan I regard as being a man of the Thomas Jefferson type, altho
of course not as able. I would greatly regret his election and think it detri-
mental to the nation, just as I think Thomas Jefferson’s election meant that
the American people were not developed to the standard necessary for the
appreciation of Washington, Marshall and Hamilton — a standard which
they did not reach until Lincoln came to the front sixty years later; for
Lincoln had, in addition to the good qualities of Hamilton and Marshall,
also those good qualities which they lacked and which Jefferson possest.
So much for Bryan. Hearst, I should think, would represent a distinctly
lower level than we have ever sunk to as President. As Governor of New
York I should think he would be more dangerous, but perhaps not intrin-
sically worse, than one or two others we have had.

But all this is the judgment of a man who is himself in the thick of the
fight; who knows that we have in Hughes an ideal candidate; who does not
see how decent citizens can hesitate between Hughes and Hearst; but who
thoroly appreciates the gross iniquity, corruption and selfishness of men in
high financial and political places which have given Hearst the chance to
take advantage of the reaction; and who also appreciates how seared the
conscience of the public has sometimes seemed in the presence of great
wrong, and how necessary it is that the conscience should be forcefully
awakened. If the circumstances were ripe in America, which they are not,
I should think that Hearst would aspire to play the part of some of the
least worthy creatures of the French Revolution As it is, he would, if suc-
cessful, merely do on a larger scale what was done by some of the men who
became populist Governors in the Western States. Those States have now
recovered, or partially recovered and are conducting themselves in decent
fashion. But the damage done, morally and physically, was real and lasting.
So it would be with Hearst. He is the most potent single influence for evil
we have in our life.

I should not think that it was advisable for you to make more than very
brief comments on the situation. In your place I should show a good deal of
self-restraint in handling Hearst, but I should certainly not be led into any-
thing that would even impliedly seem to be praise of him. Faithfully yours

4 II 7 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, October 25, 1906

Dear Cabot ; I shall show that speech of Blount’s to Taft; but my memory is
that we had to get Blount’s resignation because he was unfit. 1 He is the son
of that Blount who hauled down the flag in Hawaii. By George! you are a
trump. There are only one or two among all my correspondents who ask
aid of me, who understand the situation about my giving it as you do; and
yet, as you are of course far closer to me than any of the others, you are the
one man who would be justified in taking a different tone. My first letter to
you about Gussie, the one that I retracted, was written just because I nat-
urally feel differently toward you and yours than toward anyone else, and
I wrote the second merely because of the consternation into which I found
the first threw everybody. The New York managers are not only having
fits but are continually having fits of just the opposite kind from those which
they threw a few days previously. At the outset they were most nervous over
the administration’s taking any part m the campaign and insisted that under
no circumstances should national issues be brought in; that I was to be made
just as little of an issue as possible; that Taft, Moody and the other people
close to me were to be kept out, but that Root was to make one speech.
They arranged for Root’s speech; and then became horribly afraid that his
corporation affiliations would enable Hearst to make a point on it, where-
upon they canceled his engagement. It had never occurred to me that he
would mind it, but I find that it cut him to the quick, and I was very sorry.
Of course I did not care a rap about their wish to keep me out of the cam-
paign, as my sole concern was to elect Hughes; and, as I told them, Hughes’
election would be a victory for me even if they were most careful never to
mention my name before election day. Root minded it very much, however.

Then they had a revulsion of feeling. At the same time that they canceled
Root’s engagement Cannon came to New York, where he made a two and
a quarter hours’ speech on the tariff, the history of the Republican party,
the full dinner pail, and various other topics about which people in New
York this year are no more concerned than they are with the embargo or
the Dred Scott decision He half emptied a huge hall, and the meeting was
such a fizzle that he left the State full of the gloomiest feelings as to Hearst’s
probable victory. Therefore about half of the local leaders wanted Root to
come to the State and the other half insisted he should not. He is to speak
in Utica, in his home county, where I think he will do good. Personally, I
think he would have done great good in New York City. Now, too late,
they want Moody and Taft to cancel the engagements they have made and
come to speak in New York, and are bedeviling me to write a letter or speak.

1 Tames Henderson Blount, Jr , Georgia Democrat, United States District Judge in
the Philippines, 1901-1905, later special representative of the State Department m
Santo Domingo during the revolution of 1914. Blount’s father had been Cleveland’s
special commissioner to Hawaii in 1893.

470

I have explained to them that I do not see how I can write a letter for New
York without including most emphatically Massachusetts and Idaho in what
I say, as the fight is much alike in all three States and indeed in Idaho is
even more distinctly a fight for civilization than anywhere else, as it is
against the Western Federation of Miners, and I have gotten Taft to go out
there specifically to speak for me, just as Moody speaks for me in Massa-
chusetts and Root in New York. But of course if I only referred to those
three States in any letter of mine it would be accepted as a black eye in
Pennsylvania, Colorado and California, where they have also been besieging
me to write letters, not to speak of Iowa, where equally urgent requests have
been made. All this is aside from the Congressional districts, as I have al-
ready told you I have received over a hundred requests for special letters
for candidates for Congress, each of course, and most naturally, thinking that
his case is peculiar and can be differentiated from all others. All I want to
do is as little harm and as much good as possible, and I think the people that
ask me to write these letters would be within a week the first to regret it.
I shall ask Moody to start off his speech just as you suggest. Ever yours

4118 * TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 26, 1906

My dear Secretary Hitchcock : I send you herewith the letter of the Com-
missioner of Indian Affairs upon the report of Messrs. McLaughlin and Bums
upon the charges against Governor Frantz of Oklahoma, and the report of
Messrs. Roadstrum and Conser, who have just returned from an investigation
of all the allegations against Governor Frantz in connection with the Osage
Agency. Mr. Lcupp’s letter and the report of Messrs. Roadstrum and Conser
not only completely exonerate Governor Frantz, but show that there has
been no warrant whatever for what has been a very harassing and probably
damaging investigation of him. It was not necessary to have anything but
his alleged misconduct in connection with the Osage Agency examined, be-
cause not a shred of testimony worth heeding was produced against him in
connection with his conduct while Governor of Oklahoma.

I also enclose two letters from Governor Frantz, together with various
affidavits. I especially call your attention to the affidavits reciting the con-
versations of Mr. Flynn in which it is alleged that he stated to the various
affiants, or in their presence, that it was at your invitation or that of your
private secretary, Mr. Smith, 1 that he came to Washington and then made
statements against Frantz which in his subsequent interview with me in your
presence he acknowledged were absolutely without foundation. Yet after
this showing your subordinates seem to have acted against Frantz under the
guidance of Mr. Flynn. It would also seem from the affidavits submitted

3 W Scott Smith, after Hitchcock’s resignation, became superintendent of the

Indian Reservation at Hot Springs, Arkansas

471

that Mr. Smith created the impression that he was m an intrigue against
Frantz in connection with certain officials of Oklahoma whom, because of
their poor record or official misconduct, I had removed or refused to reap-
point; as well as with Mr. Flynn, whose feeling against Mr. Frantz was evi-
dently due to their being on opposite sides in the factional fight in the Ter-
ritory between Flynn and McGuire. I am not surprized that Governor Frantz
should feel very bitterly at what, under the circumstances, he would nat-
urally regard as a deliberate attempt to persecute him. It appears clear to me
that there has been among your subordinates what looks very much like
an organized movement to get rid of Frantz in the interest partly of his fac-
tional opponents and partly of certain dishonest politicians of the Territory.
If I had relied on the investigation taken under your orders I should have
done the greatest injustice to Frantz, as is conclusively shown by the letter
of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and by the report of the agent of the
Department of Justice and the Chief Clerk of the Indian Office. I have di-
rected the Attorney General to have the Department of Justice take steps
to prosecute the men involved in the Osage bribery case referred to.

Whether it is Mr. Smith who is responsible for what I cannot but regard
as a deliberate intrigue against Governor Frantz, or whether some other per-
sons under you are responsible for it, I cannot say; but this incident gives me
the gravest concern, for it shows that I must myself exercise constant per-
sonal vigilance lest in similar cases in your Department irreparable injury
may be done honest public servants.

After you have read over the accompanying papers I should like to see
you in reference to them. Sincerely yours

4119 • to clark howell Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Washington, October 26, 1906

My dear Mr . Howell: I have received your letter and the enclosures. I en-
close you a rough draft of what I had proposed to say in my message. 1 Will
you kindly keep it absolutely secret, save that I should be delighted to have
you show it to Mr. Fleming and any of your fellow editors of Atlanta
if you deem it wise^ Have it understood, however, that it is merely a tentative
draft and is of course to be kept secret. I have shown all but the last para-
graph to ex-Governor Montague, of Virginia, and to Mr. Silas McBee, the
editor of the Churchman , and both of them approved of it. The last para-
graph was of course suggested by your letter and the accompanying edi-
torials. Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] P.S Please let me hear not later than Sunday Nov 4th.

1 Roosevelt’s annual message of 1906 dealt at length with the Negro problem m the
South, a subject of increasing public concern after the Atlanta race riots of Septem-
ber, see State Papers, Nat. Ed. XV, 351-355.

4120 • TO KENTARO ICANEICO Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Washington, October 26, 1906

My dear Baron Kaneko . I am in receipt of your cable. The movement in
question is giving me the gravest concern. It is so purely local that we never
heard of it here in Washington until we got dispatches from Tokyo speaking
of the trouble it had caused in Japan. 1 You doubtless know that there was
a much stronger movement against the Italians in New Orleans several years
ago. Our form of government, which has many advantages, has some dis-
advantages, and one of them is in dealing with movements like this. Thru the
Department of Justice we are already taking steps in San Francisco to see if
we cannot remedy the matter thru the courts. I am sending a member of my
Cabinet, who is a Californian, to the Pacific Slope to see if he cannot remedy
matters. I shall exert all the power I have under the Constitution to protect
the rights of the Japanese who are here, and I shall deal with the subject at
length in my message to Congress.

Let me repeat that everything in my power will be done. The action of
these people in San Francisco no more represents American sentiment as a
whole than the action of the Japanese seal pirates last summer represented
Japanese sentiment.

This letter is to be treated as confidential, save that you are entirely wel-
come to show it to any responsible official of your Government
With regards to the Baroness, believe me, Sincerely yours

4121 * TO EUGENE HALE Roosevelt MSS.

Private Washington, October 27, 1906

My dear Senator Hale: This letter is of course strictly private. I write you
because of your position in the Senate, where I know you to be one of the
two or three men of most influence, and where I believe you to be the man
of most influence.

You have doubtless seen the trouble we are having m connection with
the Japanese in California. This is not due to the possession of the Philip-
pines, for our clash with Japan has come purely from the Japanese m Hawaii
and on the Pacific Slope (save in connection with the Japanese seal poachers
last summer). Under the lead of the trades unions the San Francisco people,
and apparently also the people in certain other California cities, have been

1 On October 1 1 the San Francisco School Board passed the troublesome resolution
which segregated all Chinese, Korean, and Japanese children and placed them m
the Oriental Public School. This order, “intimately associated with the campaign
for Japanese exclusion,” was, in the opinion of a student of the episode, “an attempt
to put the Japanese in his place” News of the ordei reached Japan about October
20, u eating at once among the press and people excited indignation and precipitating
an international crisis which held Roosevelt’s attention for months, see Bailey,
Roosevelt and the Japanese- American Crises, chs li-vin.

indulging in boycotts against Japanese restaurant keepers, have excluded the
Japanese children from the public schools, and have in other ways threatened,
sometimes by law and sometimes by the action of mobs, the rights secured
to Japanese in this country by our solemn treaty engagements with Japan.
I am doing everything in my power to secure the righting of these wrongs.
Thru the Department of Justice we are seeking such aid as the courts will
grant. I have sent Secretary Metcalf out to California to confer with the
authorities and with the labor union people, and to point out the grave risk
they are forcing the whole country to incur. Probably Root will have to
communicate formally with the Governor of California. Exactly how much
further I shall go I do not know. It is possible I may have to use the army
in connection with boycotting or the suppression of mob violence.

If these troubles merely affected our internal arrangements, I should not
bother you with them, but of course they may possibly bring about war with
Japan. I do not think that they will bring it about at the moment, but even
as to this I am not certain, for the Japanese are proud, sensitive, warlike, arc
flushed with the glory of their recent triumph, and are in my opinion bent
upon establishing themselves as the leading power in the Pacific. As I told you
at the time, while my mam motive in striving to bring about peace between
Japan and Russia was the disinterested one of putting an end to the blood-
shed, I was also influenced by the desirability of preventing Japan from
driving Russia completely out of East Asia. This object was achieved, and
Russia stands face to face with Japan in Manchuria. But the internal con-
dition of Russia is now such that she is no longer m any way a menace to or
restraint upon Japan, and probably will not be for a number of years to come.
I do not pretend to have the least idea as to Japan’s policy or real feeling,
whether toward us or toward anyone else. I do not think that she wishes
war as such, and I doubt if she will go to war now, but I am very sure that if
sufficiently irritated and humiliated by us she will get to accept us instead
of Russia as the national enemy whom she will ultimately have to fight, and
under such circumstances her concentration and continuity of purpose, and
the exceedingly formidable character of her army and navy, make it neces-
sary to reckon very seriously with her. It seems to me that all of this necessi-
tates our having a definite policy with regard to her, a policy of behaving
with absolute good faith, courtesy and justice to her on the one hand, and on
the other, of keeping our navy in such shape as to make it a risky thing for
Japan to go into war with us. The first part of the policy I shall carry out as
well as I am able, but our federal form of government, with all its ad-
vantages, has very great disadvantages when we come to carrying out a
foreign policy, and it would be a most difficult thing to prevent mobs and
demagogs in certain parts of the country from doing a succession of acts
which will tend to embroil us with the Japanese This being the case, I most
earnestly feel that we cannot afford to let our navy fall behind. The Cuban
business this year was managed admirably, alike by the navy and the army,

474

and as a matter of practical experience I am now able to say that the general
staff of the army and the general board of the navy were among the most
efficient causes in bringing about this result. The improvement in both army
and navy over things as they were at the beginning of the Spanish War is
marvelous. I do not think we can afford to let the army go back, and I think
we must keep building the navy up. I have made a very careful study of
the Japanesc-Russian War last year, and I am convinced that the advantages
of size and speed in battleships, the advantages of having battleships carry-
ing say eight twelve-inch guns, are very, very great. I would be delighted
if the Hague Conference would agree that hereafter all battleships should
be limited in size; but after sounding France, Germany, England and Italy
in the matter, I see no hope of accomplishing this result. In view of this I feel
that we ought to go ahead with the steady progress of building this year the
ship authorized last year and the ship to be authorized this — that is, two
ships the equal of any laid down by any nation.

I very earnestly hope that you will consider this matter especially from
the standpoint of our possibly having trouble with Japan because of the
peculiar circumstances of our relations.

With great regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4122 • 10 KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, October 27, 1906

Dear Rermit: I have an autograph letter of James Monroe, one of his official
letters as Governor of Virginia, which I have given to Mother to keep for
you. Mother has taken Ethel and Archie down the river this morning and
they are not coming back until tomorrow (Sunday) evening. She thinks
Ethel needed the rest, and I think it will be a good thing for Mother herself.
Archie went off first to play a game of football and was to overtake them
in a motor boat. Archie was tremendously exercised over the shameful short-
coming of two members of the team, a tackle and a half-back who, as he
informed me, were “Mohammedan Turks” — this I found to be literally
true as they are the sons of the Turkish Minister — and who had kept a
previous engagement instead of going to play in the match. I regret to state
Archie seemed to think they were rather above the average of the remain-
ing Christians in this play; and he felt that the effect upon thd team would
be most sinister. Skip loathes the football and when Archie and his team are
practicing out on the grounds here always rushes up-stairs to stay with
Mademoiselle whereas Rollo acts just like the huge bouncing puppy he is
and takes as much part m the game as the players will stand.

I am being horribly bothered about the Japanese business. The infernal
fools in California, and especially in San Francisco, insult the Japanese reck-
lessly, and in the event of war it will be the Nation as a whole which will
pay the consequences. However I hope to keep things straight. I am perfectly

475

willing that this Nation should fight any nation if it has got to, but I would
loathe to see it forced into a war in which it was wrong. Y our loving father
[. Handwritten ] Sunday. I have just had a delightful long ride with Baron
Speck; this afternoon I shall take Quentin out to the open air services at the
Cathedral to hear a sermon from our former Rough Rider chaplain.

4123 • to samuel gompers Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, October 27, 190 6

My dear Sir: I have received your request for a hearing on November 7th,
8th, or 9th in reference to the anti-injunction bill. I do not know that there
is much more I could say in reference to it beyond what I have already said,
and as I am to start for Panama on the afternoon of the 8th I may not be
able to give you as much time as you may desire, and, unfortunately, I fear
the Attorney General will not be in Washington. Nevertheless, if you will
come with your attorney and I hope only one or two representatives to see
me at 12:00 o’clock on Wednesday, November 7th, it will be a pleasure to
go over the matter with you Sincerely yours

4124 • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK ROOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I have received from Senator Warren a letter dated
October 5th, 1 which I enclose, together with a copy of his proposed amend-
ment to the joint statehood bill and a typewritten comment thereon; and
furthermore the eight-page copy of a statement admitted to have been issued
on August 15th by the Interior Department, in connection with this amend-
ment, and newspaper clippings commenting thereon

Verbally the statement is also made that there is a “bureau of publicity”
run m connection with the Interior Department, not merely with the pur-
pose of furnishing the newspapers with facts to the credit of you and of the
Department, but also to furnish them with facts to the discredit of other
officials of the Government. You doubtless remember the publication last
spring of an entirely unwarranted attack on the Department of Justice in
connection with the Oklahoma and Indian Territory affairs, the allegations
being without base m fact. The Associated Press people then told me that
they had been furnished the statement by the Interior Department, making
certain allegations in reference thereto which I was reluctant to go into be-
cause of the entanglement that might ensue (the statement being that you had
personally given the information), and as Mr. Moody, on behalf of the
Department of Justice, stated that he was willing to have the matter rest

1 Warren’s letter of October 3 to Roosevelt is printed in House Report, 62 Cong,
3 sess,, no 1335, pp 19-21 For Hitchcock’s answers to the, questions and accusations
raised in the senator’s letter, see same report, pp 26-32.

476

where it was so as to avoid causing trouble with a fellow member of the
Cabinet, I decided to do nothing further. I have also, as you know, taken
no action in the matter of the unwarranted publication, without authoriza-
tion from me, of Governor Higgins’ letter to me, and of your letter to me
in answer thereto; tho there is additional matter in connection therewith as
to which I shall later in this letter submit a question. But in this instance,
as the attack is made upon a United States Senator, and inasmuch as no facts
have yet been produced to justify the attack, while the manner of making
the attack certainly cannot be justified at all, I feel that I must ask for an
explanation.

It appears that the amendment in question was introduced by Senator
Warren at the request of a constituent of his, a Wyoming man, who had an
interest in Oklahoma. It further appears that the amendment proposed to do
for Oklahoma practically just what had been done in enabling acts for the
Territories admitted as States under similar bills during the last few years —
Idaho and Wyoming, for instance — and substantially what was provided in
* the same bill as regards Arizona. Unless some statement to the contrary is
presented there would therefore appear to have been nothing unusual in the
amendment in question; and it would seem on its face — unless testimony
to the contrary is produced — so far as Senator Warren is concerned, that his
action was natuial, and that no improper motives can be ascribed to him,
altho the special circumstances in the case made me feel at the time, and feel
now, that it was, as a question of policy, inexpedient to adopt his amendment.
It further appears that there was nothing furtive done in connection with
this amendment, that it was openly introduced on February 26th by Senator
Warren, was referred to the Committee of Territories and ordered to be
printed. The Committee on Territories was then holding daily sessions and
the Senator has reason to suppose that the amendment was given due and
usual consideration by the Committee, and he also supposes, whether rightly
or wrongly I do not know, that it was sent to the Interior Department for
report. Eleven days afterwards, on March 9th, when the Statehood bill was
under consideration, he again offered the amendment referred to. Senator
Beveridge, on behalf of the Committee, stated that the Committee would
accept it, and it was agreed to by the Senate. 2 Shortly afterwards I was in-
formed by several people that the amendment in question was objectionable to
Oklahoma, among these people being both Governor Frantz of Oklahoma and
you yourself. It appears that the bill past the Senate with the amendment in,
that then Governor Frantz and representatives of the Interior Department,
including I believe you personally, appeared before the Conference Com-
mittee, objecting to the amendment, I having told both Governor Frantz and
yourself that on the information given me I sympathized with the objection

“The Warren Amendment provided that citizens who had already filed claims for

inineial land granted to the State of Oklahoma in the Statehood Bill could retain

these claims, and that the state could select other land in lieu thereof

477

It is stated furthermore that at none of these hearings was any assertion made
that the presentation of this type of amendment to such an enabling act was
unusual, or that any question of the Senator’s honesty, or indeed any other
question but a matter of public interest and public policy was at stake. The
Senator further asserts that he asked you if you knew the constituent for
whom he acted, Mr. Walker, and that you responded that you did know
Mr. Walker and that he was a good and reliable man of honorable character,
and that the same was true of Mr. Walker’s attorney in Washington. Senator
Warren further states that his interest in the matter was impersonal, that he
did not appear in behalf of the amendment at any of the hearings, leaving
the entire matter to the judgment of the Committee, feeling that he had done
enough in submitting the amendment. A substitute amendment was finally
adopted.

The publication by the Interior Department which I enclose appeared
on or about August 15th. It is peculiarly drawn up. In form, to those who are
not acquainted with the circumstances, it would seem not to be prepared in
the Interior Department, but by some disinterested person. It contains a very
strong eulogy of you, and grave reflections, by implication at least, on
Senator Warren. It opens by saying

Facts have just come to light showing that there was a very bitter fight during
the closing days of the last session of Congress over a provision of the Statehood
bill which has received little public attention. As a result of this fight, which was
conducted by the Secretary of the Interior on one side, and a number of attorneys
representing an organized band of land speculators on the other, the new State of
Oklahoma will be the recipient of school lands containing oil and other minerals
which are estimated to be worth between one and two million dollars.

It continues that

Early in March, however, Secretary Hitchcock learned that an amendment
had been slipped into the Statehood bill m the Senate (known as the “Warren
amendment”) x x x . The Secretary, on looking into the matter, reached the
conclusions that the claims of the parties who would benefit by the amendment
were entirely without merit, and that the whole scheme bore some resemblance to
a raid upon the treasury.

The above quotations of course convey the most offensive implication
as regards Senator Warren and as regards the people engaged in pressing
the amendment. As the amendment had been defeated and the whole matter
closed months before, I do not see what object there was at this time in
using such language or making such a report about it. Moreover, the expres-
sion “slipped into” necessarily conveys the idea that Senator Warren was
acting furtively. So far as appears from any facts before me, he acted with
entire openness and in the usual fashion in which all those who were intro-
ducing amendments to the bill were at that very time acting.

The published memorandum then continues, describing your activity
in opposing the amendment, and the widespread indignation about it in

478

Oklahoma, which, says the memorandum, “found vent in numerous letters,
telegrams and petitions to Secretary Hitchcock, to whom everybody seemed
to look as the man who should lead the fight against the measure. Some of
the letters were models of invective, and all seemed to be impregnated with
caloric. The writers were evidently convinced that a big ‘job’ was being
worked against the Territory, and they did not hestitate to put their opimons
into plain language: the terms ‘graft’ and ‘grafters’ being mild as compared to
some that were used ”

The memorandum goes on to say that the Department continued its
fight against the amendment. It then says, “If Secretary Hitchcock thought
the fight was won, however, he was mistaken, for the activity of the at-
torneys for the speculators increased every day.” This form is worthy of
comment, if, as is alleged, the publication was submitted to and approved by
you before it was issued The memorandum goes on to describe your per-
sonal efforts to beat the bill, no mention being made, for instance, of the
fact that Governor Frantz of Oklahoma, among others, was taking a strong
part against the bill. The memorandum sets forth your services at length.
Towards the end it says —

When the people of Oklahoma were celebrating the passage of the Statehood
bill, it is probable that they did not know how near the new commonwealth came
to losing some of its most valuable possessions, besides having a blot on its es-
cutcheon from having been made the victim of unscrupulous speculators upon its
first entrance into the union of States.

Let me repeat that from information given me by you or obtained by
me thru Governor Frantz and others, I was against the adoption of the
amendment. If those pushing it were unscrupulous speculators, were guilty
of jobbing, grafting, or the like, then it would have been, or was, eminently
proper to show this to be true before the Committee at the time. I do not
as yet understand what was the need of bringing up the matter afterwards
when it was all past history, and the only object of the publication would
seem to be to secure public credit for certain individuals, and discredit for
others. Of course, if any man had acted badly, he should have been shown
up; but I do not understand why he was not shown up at the time, and why,
if not then shown up, the attack should afterwards have been made upon
him anonymously. At the time of the hearing before the committee, and not
later, was the time to attack Senator Warren, if he was to be attacked at all.

Assistant Secretary Ryan 3 tells me that the memorandum in question was
prepared by Mr. Acker, a clerk in the Interior Department; that it was sub-
mitted to Mr. Ryan, who forwarded it to you to find out if you approved
of its form and desired to have it published; and that you returned it with
your approval, after having, however, struck out a commendatory allusion

J Thomas Ryan, Republican representative from Kansas, 1877-1889, minister to the

Republic of Mexico, 1889-1893, First Assistant Secretary of the Interior, 1897-1907.

479

which it contained to the action of Governor Frantz of Oklahoma m oppos-
ing the amendment.

I call your attention to the enclosed clippings from such papers as the
Providence Journal, the Denver News, the Erie Herald, the Vincennes Sttn .
These are of importance because certain officials of the Interior Department,
as I understand, have alleged that the published statement did not really
contain an attack on Senator Warren. It will be seen, however, that all the
papers treated it as a personal attack by you on Senator Warren. The Denvei
News says that you “roast” Senator Warren; that you have characterized his
amendment as a deliberate steal, that the amendment was urged by an
organized band of land speculators, resembled a raid on the treasury, and so
forth and so forth. The Providence Journal says:

Another striking demonstration of the courage of the Secretary of the Interior —
a courage most unusual m a public official dealing with the weaknesses of influen-
tial members of his own political party — is afforded by his ungloved attack upon
Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming. Without mincing words * * * and in
plain English he names Senator Warren as the power behind the throne, the
conspicuous counsel, friend, associate and, inferentially, beneficiary of the “com-
bine” of “looters” and “grafters.” * * * Senator Warren may be innocent, but the
case as it stands officially made up and publicly endorsed by Secretary Hitchcock
looks bad for him, and seems to require at least a defense. He is a conspicuous
target for a member of the Cabinet to shoot at.

These quotations show that the publication m question was construed —
and I am bound to say that I think it could only have been construed — as a
deliberate attack upon Senator Warren for having in this matter of the
amendment acted m the interest of grafters who were trying to loot the
treasury, and as having made the effort in their behalf in furtive fashion.
Whether Senator Warren has been guilty of any misconduct in any other
matters has nothing to do with that which I touch upon in this letter. I
would like to know whether you intended to convey the impression about
Senator Warren which the Providence Journal, the Denver News, and so
forth, quoted you as conveying; and if they misrepresented your attitude I
would like to know whether you ever made any statement to correct the
impression, and if not, why such a statement was not immediately made
It seems to me clear that the published statement does contain a very severe
attack on the Senator, and that it was due him either to give proof of
its accuracy, or immediately to explain that it was misleading and that no
attack was intended. If Senator Warren has been guilty in this matter, then
let his guilt be shown; but not by innuendo, and not in such fashion as that
which has been adopted.

I further call your attention to another publication m the New York
Herald under date of August 1 9th. This looks as if it were inspired from the
same sources as the memorandum to which I have been making reference,
which is the reason why I speak of it. I especially call your attention to the

480

Roosevelt at Harrisburg, 1906. “We need to check the forces of greed.”

Roosevelt Inspecting Panama “ I went over everything that I could
possibly go over . It is an epic feat ”

closing lines, which state that there are even greater surprises in store than
those to which the Secretary (that is, you) have treated the public this fall.
This is apparently a reference to the investigations you have been m aking in
Wyoming, of which you have since told me, in the West it has been so
accepted, and it ought not to be necessary to say that until the matter is
submitted to me no hint of it should be allowed to escape. It is eminently
proper that the Department of the Interior should receive full credit for its
work, but it is not proper that, as in this article, it should be said that it was
you, the Secretary of the Interior, who “instituted” and “ordered” the prose-
cutions against Senator Mitchell and two Representatives in Congress from
Oregon, “all of (your) own political party, and among the most prominent
people in the State” as the article is careful to allege. As a matter of fact,
while the officials under you did their full duty and were instrumental in
securing testimony against Senator Mitchell and the two Congressmen, their
part was exactly the same as that played by the Post-Office authorities in the
case of Senator Burton. You stood in the one case precisely as the Postmaster
General stood in the other; or indeed, to be accurate, in the case of Senator
Mitchell and the Oregon Congressmen the Department of Justice is entitled
to an even larger share of the credit as compared with the Interior Depart-
ment than it is m the case of Burton as compared with the Post-Office
Department. The vital matter in the Oregon prosecution was the appoint-
ment by Mr Knox, then Attorney General, of Mr Heney to prosecute the
cases. It was Mr. Heney of the Department of Justice who carried these cases
thru, and on whose recommendations I consistently acted, and he was spe-
cially chosen for the work by Mr. Knox. Of course he received loyal and
invaluable aid from the officials of your Department, just as under similar
circumstances the officials of the Department of Justice received loyal and
invaluable aid from the officials of the Post-Office Department. I should
most emphatically disapprove of the Postmaster General securing or pro-
moting the publication of articles tending to exalt his own share in securing
the conviction of Burton by slighting or depreciating the action of the De-
partment of Justice, and I have the same feeling as regards this Oregon matter
in the case of your Department. Such an attitude tends to prevent the cordial
working together of the Departments which is essential if good results are to
be secured. Thus, in the article in question, in dealing with the Nebraska land
frauds, no mention is made of the fact that the Attorney General, Mr. Moody,
before any request was made by you, brought the matter of the conduct of the
District Attorney and Marshal to my attention, both officials being there-
upon removed. Anyone reading the article in question would believe that
the Interior Department in these matters had acted with practically no sup-
port from the Department of Justice. I call your attention furthermore to the
fact that in this article in the New York Herald it is again stated that Senator
Warren’s amendment was one in the interest of land speculators and that
you succeeded in having it struck out, so that the attack upon him was re-

48 1

peated in a form which, failing any public denial or repudiation by you, was
inevitably accepted as being sanctioned by you

I also call your attention to the pamphlet issued by the Department of
the Interior upon the hearings before you upon the matter of the oil leases
in the Indian Territory and in Oklahoma, these hearings running from May
8th to June 19th last. I have already written to you about the unauthorized
publication by you of Governor Higgins’ personal letter to me, which I
referred to you for comment, and of the unauthorized publication of your
letter to me in which you gave me the comment requested, I need hardly
repeat what I then said, that such action by a Cabinet minister is not only
as far as I know unheard of, but of course completely destroys the necessary
confidential relations between the President and the Cabinet minister. The
President must be continually sending confidential matter to his Cabinet
ministers for comment and return, if his work is to be well done; and it is
out of the question thus to send these matters if they are to be published,
without any authorization from him, together with the letters of the Cabinet
minister in reference thereto. My attention, however, has been specifically
called to two or three matters m connection with this pamphlet which I did
not know of or appreciate when I wrote you before. On page 49, you say,
speaking of Mr. Barnsdall, that “he thought he would influence me, thru the
President, by politics. The President gave me Governor Higgins’ letter to
answer, which I did.” I desire to know whether this is to be construed as
meamng that I was endeavoring to influence you for political reasons to
take or leave untaken some action in this matter Moreover, I desire to know
what was the object of publishing the pamphlet containing the hearings on
the leasing of the oil lands m the Territories in question, and why at the very
beginning, in the most prominent place in that pamphlet, there should appear,
out of their chronological order, Governor Higgins’ letter, marked “per-
sonal,” and your answer thereto, m which you speak of Mr. Barnsdall as
Governor Higgins’ “political friend” — a fact as to which I know nothing,
and which had nothing to do with the case in any event On page 48 you say
of Mr. Barnsdall, “In this gas-line proposition he rushes off to Governor Hig-
gins of New York — there is where the politics come m — and got Governor
Higgins to write to the President.” I do not understand the object in making
such an assertion, and I would like an explanation from you in reference
thereto. The representative of Mr Barnsdall who has called upon me and
written to me again and again is ex-Senator Jones, the chairman of Mr.
Bryan’s campaign committee and a Democrat, and the gentleman with whom
Mr. Barnsdall seems to have his chief interest in common is Mr. Guffey, also
a Democrat. I may add that on the facts as so far given me, tho of course I
shall not come to a definite conclusion until the final arguments are all before
me, I am inclined to support your position as regards Mr. Barnsdall and as
regards the matters brought before me both by ex-Senator Jones and by
Governor Higgins.

482

Let me emphasize, what should surely need no emphasis, that my aim
in this matter is not to shield any man but to prevent any injustice. It is an
outrage to shield a criminal, it is a scarcely less grave offense wantonly or
without sufficient cause to accuse an innocent man, or a man innocent of the
particular offense with which he is charged. The Department of Justice, for
instance, has been able to secure the conviction of two Senators, Messrs.
Mitchell and Burton Senator Mitchell was convicted thru Mr. Heney, espe-
cially appointed by Attorney General Knox to carry out the suits. Mr.
Mitchell was implicated in matters coming under your Department, Mr.
Burton was implicated in matters coming under the Post-Office Department
If instead of setting quietly to work to obtain the necessary evidence and
to secure conviction, the Department of Justice had permitted public state-
ments to be made containing general attacks upon the Senators in question,
together with laudatory comments upon the Attorney General’s action, the
Senators would have probably escaped punishment. The offense would have
been even graver if the attacks had been made either upon innocent Senators
or private individuals, or upon the same Senators for things which they had
not done. Very truly yours

4125 • TO HERBERT PARSONS Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, October 27, 1906

My dear Parsons: Let me repeat that I am concerned over your letter and
what you tell me about Cortelyou I do not regard it as a possible thing for
me to write such a letter. Why in the name of Heaven, if there is supposed
to be any doubt about my supporting Hughes, don’t you reproduce the
telegram I sent him on his nomination? It is all very well to say that Hughes
is the candidate in my State, but after all I am President of all the States and
I have had to refuse to write such letters as regards scores of candidates for
Governor and State officers and as regards over a hundred candidates for
Congress. I can have it announced and will have it announced next week that
I am going home to vote for Hughes because I take so deep an interest in
his success and regard him so emphatically as representing the beliefs and
policies which I have closest at heart. But I certainly do not yet see any
justification for writing such a letter as you suggest

The way for me to speak is thru the Cabinet officers who are authorized
to speak for me. On Thursday next Root in his speech at Utica will announce
that he is authoritatively stating my position and will do so as strongly as
he knows how, just as Moody will do in Massachusetts, and Taft in Ohio,
Illinois and Idaho; but I do not see how it is possible for me to write a letter
in one case and not write it in others. Moreover, while I think there is a
great deal to be said on both sides as to whether you should have kept your
campaign purely on State issues or make the National administration a fore-
most issue, I think that the time has gone by as far as New York City is

483

concerned when it is possible to change the course already adopted. The way
to put me in the campaign was by my close representatives not by a letter
Faithfully yours

P.S. The hour for breakfast Tuesday morning will be 8.00 o’clock instead
of 8 30 as you were notified, and I look forward to seeing you.

4126 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, October 29, 1906

To the Secretary of State: During my absence in Panama I direct you if
necessary to use the armed forces of the United States to protect the Japa-
nese in any portion of this country if they are menaced by mobs or jeoparded
in the rights guaranteed them under our solemn treaty obligations.

4127 * TO JOSEPH VERY QUARLES Roosevelt Mss

Washington, October 29, 1906

My dear Judge: If what I am about to ask you is not the right and proper
thing to ask a judge, pray treat the request as not made. I am not a lawyer
and therefore am not aware of exactly what the conventions are in these
matters. But Mr. Frey, of the Ironmolders’ Union, a gentleman who is a
friend of mine and whom I genuinely respect, has come to me and I wish to
help him out so far as it is proper for me to do so.

Mr. Frey says that there was an injunction granted by you of a rather
elaborate kind against the Ironmolders’ Union in Milwaukee, and that you
explained as to several of the points involved just exactly what the men
could do without violating its terms. It appears that the men are now charged
with contempt for violating this injunction, and they state that they only did
what you said they were permitted to do. It is feared by them that they may
be brought up to answer before another judge or a commissioner, who will
not know the facts or be acquainted with your own interpretation of the
scope of the injunction. Mr. Frey is very anxious, on behalf of the men,
that you, who issued the injunction and who are familiar with exactly what
you told the men they could do under its terms, shall hear the contempt case,
so that, having this full knowledge, you may judge whether or not they have
been guilty of contempt As a layman it seems to me that this is a proper
request; and if it is a proper request I earnestly hope you can grant it and
yourself hear the case. If it is not a proper request, pray treat it as with-
drawn. 1

With regards to Mrs. Quarles, believe me, Sincerely yours

1 The injunction in question, resting on an anachronistic interpretation of the cnminal
conspiracy doctrine, restrained the activities of the union m its stake against the
Vilter Manufacturing Company It was nullified by a decision on November 28 of
Circuit Court Judge James J. Dick who ruled that peaceful persuasion did not
violate Quarles’ order Dick’s ruling was the second victory within a year m an

484

412 8 TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, October 29, 1906

The Attorney General : Please direct the District Attorney in Milwaukee im-
mediately to investigate the case against the ironmolders for violating an
injunction granted by Judge Quarles. It is claimed that the ironmolders have
now been brought up under a State law which was designed for a wholly
different purpose, and that this law is now being used m connection with the
labor trouble, a purpose for which it was never designed. It is further claimed
that the law, if construed to apply to labor troubles, puts a labor union at
as complete disadvantage as it was in England in the old days of the con-
spiracy laws. Mr. Frey, of the Ironmolders’ Union has been to me. He
maintains it is not the law they object to, but what they regard as the strained
interpretation put upon it by the courts; just as what they object to as regards
the injunction is not the injunction itself, but the interpretation placed upon
it. Ask the District Attorney to confer with Mr. George Gunorey, who will
be requested to call upon him; and to report to me exactly the facts.

4129 • TO HENRY LEE HIGGINSON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, October 29, 1906

My dear Colonel * I value your letter. I am going to lay all the emphasis I can
on the need for currency legislation, and especially on the very point you
advise; that is upon some scheme for having what might be called a highly
taxed emergency or stringency currency, so as to give us the necessary
elasticity and permit both contraction and expansion as our needs may de-
mand. 1 I agree with all you say about this but you have no conception how
difficult it is to accomplish much when the bankers pull in diametrically op-
posite directions.

Remember that I count upon seeing you when you next get down here,
and I want you to notify me in advance. Faithfully yours

4130 ■ TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, October 31, 1906

Dear Cabot: I have put m a strong plea on the merchant marine business —
stronger than last year. 1

injunction case for the Milwaukee ironmolders. Earlier, in July, Quarles himself
had dissolved his own temporary injunction which had restrained the union m a
strike against Allis-Chalmers. In large part the umon owed these victories to the
incisive arguments of its able Milwaukee attorney, W B. Rubin

x See Roosevelt’s annual message of 1906, State Papers , Nat. Ed. XV, 378-380.

x See Roosevelt’s annual message of 1906, State Papers, Nat. Ed. XV, 378.

485

I received a telegram from Gus which I do not understand and which
runs as follows-

The Boston Herald, of this morning, says editorially, “Mr. Moody writes Con-
gressman Gardner the President earnestly hopes for your re-election.” We await
the President’s O.K. before accepting this without some grains of salt.

In New York I think the situation doubtful tho I cannot help believing
that we are going to win. The managers have at the end suddenly grown
utterly panic-stricken. They are yelling for me to speak. I think I have ar-
ranged by authorizing Root to speak for me and he is going to make a
corking speech. We have suffered very much from lack of funds. You
would be dumfounded to know how universally the rich men have refused
to contribute, for the most part hardly concealing the fact that they would
be quite as willing to have Hearst as anyone in the Republican party as long
as I am at the head. In their hearts they take the ground that to take legal
proceedings against them when they violate the law and to endeavor to have
them pay their proper share of the taxes is as much of an outrage as to excite
the mob to plunder the rich. As you know, in San Francisco many of the big
corporations have deliberately stood by the labor union party, saying with
utter cynicism that they preferred the chance of occasional violence if they
could temper it with corruption, to an honest government that would per-
mit neither corruption nor violence. The more I see of very rich men acting
singly or in corporations the more firmly I feel that they are of no advantage
to the country and that the movement in which, thank fortune, I have been
steadily engaged for some time was absolutely necessary.

With best love to Nannie, Faithfully yours

[Handwritten] Loeb says the typewriter was responsible for “peace.” My
feelings are those of the younger Mr. Weller on the subject of his own name.
I enclose an amusing note of Bonapartes.

4131 - TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 5, 1906

Dear Will- Mrs. Taft could not have told you that I said I might probably
have to support Hughes for the Presidency. I do not think there is one
chance in a thousand of it. What I said to her was that you must not be too
entirely aloof because if you were it might dishearten your supporters and
put us all in such shape that some man like Hughes, or more probably some
man from the West, would turn up with so much popular sentiment behind
him that there would be no course open but to support him. I was careful to
make the statement with every kind of proviso, saying that I thought it very
improbable, but that if Hughes or some other man so carried himself during
the next eighteen months as to get popular support strongly behind him, and
if people like our Kentucky friends felt that you did not really care for the

486

fight, and were not in it, that we might find ourselves wholly powerless to
support you. As a matter of fact I think I fixt the Kentuckians for you all
right myself. (May Heaven forgive me, they swore they would not tell my
part in it — and of course they will tell the «story.)»

About the Canal Commission, of course I shall do as you suggest, but I
hope we can save Bishop his $10,000 salary 1 1

I am immensely interested in your account of your campaign. By George,
Will, I wonder if you and Root realize the constant pleasure and strength
you both are to me 1 * Didn’t Root make a fine speech? I take the keenest pride
in what you are now doing. Three cheers for “offensive partisanship” !

Of course do what you want about Bell and Wint.

Your speeches are admirable. Ever yours

P.S. The Roosevelt Club has been acting like such a fool in Cincinnati
that I wonder if it would be possible for me to dissociate myself from it.
I will talk this over with you when we meet.

4132 • to clark howell Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November j, 1906

My dear Mr. Howell: I am glad you like what I said. Governor Montague,
to whom I sent the same material, has also returned it with his approval,
making some minor suggestions which I have adopted.

There is one point, however, as to which the information that I have
received makes me feel very doubtful, that is, as to the wisdom of my
making the recommendation for a commission I am very much afraid that
a certain extreme element here in the North would misunderstand that rec-
ommendation and hail it as having what would be in reality a sinister party
purpose, and I am almost equally afraid that an exactly opposite element m
the South, but an element no less radical and no less prejudiced, would make
the same mistake. After a good deal of studying over the subject it has seemed
to me that the best way to get at it would be for some first-class southern
Senator or Congressman to introduce the bill and then for me heartily to
back it up. 1 It seems to me that this would prevent even the most sensitive
Southerner from being set against the measure and would from the beginning
render it impossible for the element m the North to which I have reference
to attempt to twist it aside from its proper purpose. What do you think of
this, and have you any man to suggest who could introduce the measure^ 5
What are your relations with Senator Clay, and do you think he would
introduce it? He has always struck me as a square man, sincerely anxious to

1 Bi&hop , s salary and his status as secretary to, but not a member of, the Isthmian

Canal Commission remained unchanged.

1 The commission, presumably to investigate lynching, was neither mentioned in

Roosevelt’s message nor proposed by a member of Congress

487

do well by the country. The kind of man I would like would be someone as
nearly resembling Mr. Fleming as is to be found in Congress.

At any rate, it seems to me that I had better not embody the suggestion
in my message, but see how what I say on lynching is accepted and then try
a special message after consulting with the southern members whom you and
I and men like ex-Governor Montague and Judge Jones feel to be really
disinterested and patriotic, with the necessary courage to make their virtue
count for something. Sincerely yours

4133 * TO WHITELAW REID Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 6, 1906

Dear Retd: Many thanks for your very interesting letter. I am delighted that
Gray has waked up about poor Durand. I shall be very sorry to have Durand
lose his pension or suffer m any way, but it is a simple farce to have him here
as Ambassador. You speak of Lowther. Is he not the man who was Secretary
of the Embassy here and got into a row with some Senators over something
he had said about this country? My impression is that he was a good fellow
but somewhat indiscreet, and, indeed, a little on the Durand order. Of course
I earnestly wish they could send either Spring Rice, or Arthur Lee if Spring
Rice cannot be spared from Persia Arthur Lee would be a particularly fine
fellow and would be of real* help here. He would be very satisfactory. 3
Give my warm regards to Mrs. Reid Sincerely yours

4134 • TO ALICE ROOSEVELT LONGWORTH RoOSCVelt M.SS.

Washington, November 7, 1906

Dear Alice: First let me thank you heartily for the really beautiful glasses.
They make a ve?y nice birthday gift and were just what I wanted.

Next let me congratulate you and Nick with all my heart upon the
successful way m which both of you have run your campaign. I tell you I
felt mighty pleased with my daughter and her husband — especially com-
paring them with certain other American girls and their spouses, as for
example, the Duke and Duchess of Marlboro, of fragrant presence 1

Well, we have certainly smitten Ammon hip and thigh. I had no idea that
we were going to do so well m the Congressional campaign. If the Republi-
can, Gooding, is elected m Idaho there won’t be anything to regret of any
consequence. Next to beating Hearst in New York, I was most anxious to
see Gooding elected in Idaho; that is, of course, aside from the Congressional
campaign. It is very gratifying to have ridden iron-shod over Gompers and
the labor agitatois, and at the same time to have won the striking victory

1 James Bryce m 1907 succeeded Durand as British Ambassador to the United States

488

while the big financiers either stood sullenly aloof or gave furtive aid to the
enemy. 1

With love to Nick, Ever yours

[Handwntteti] P.S Yes, we have elected Gooding Governor in Idaho; it
is a big victory for civilization, to have beaten those Western Federation of
Miners scoundrels.

4135 • TO CURTIS guild, junior Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Washington, November 7, 1906

Your telegram received. The order in question will under no circumstances
be rescinded or modified. 1 The action was precisely such as I should have
taken had the soldiers guilty of the misconduct been white men instead of
colored men. I can hardly believe that those who requested you to communi-
cate with me were aware of the extreme gravity of the offense committed.
Certainly only ignorance of the facts could justify such an appeal to me. As
for the concluding paragraph of your telegram in which you state that the
men in question do not desire to make any political capital by public attacks
on me, I can only say that I feel the most profound indifference to any
possible attack which can be made on me m this matter. When the discipline
and honor of the American Army are at stake I shall never under any circum-
stances consider the political bearing of upholding that discipline and that
honor, and no graver misfortune could happen to the American Army than

1 One, at least, of the “big financiers,” neither “sullen” nor “furtive,” did not agree
that Roosevelt had “smitten Ammon hip and thigh” Charles E. Perkins, former
president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, considered on the contrary that
Roosevelt had been smitten. The reduced Republican margin in New York, the
resounding victories of Cannon and Foraker, and Democratic gams in Kansas and
Iowa, Perkins wrote Senator Allison, evidenced a national revulsion at Rooseveltism
and its companion afflictions, particularly trade unionism and socialism. Even the
election of Gooding, from Perkins’ point of view, symbolized a defeat for the
President (see Perkins to Allison, November 13, 1906, Perkins Mss ). Neither Perkins
nor Roosevelt was m fact wholly justified in his claims The Right and the Center
played equal roles m the rout of the Left m 1906.

1 Roosevelt on November 5 ordered the men of the three companies involved in the
Brownsville affair “discharged without honor , . . and forever barred from re-enlist-
ing in the Army or Navy of the United States.” Brigadier General E. A Garlmgton,
inspector general of the army, had investigated the episode. With the President’s
authority, Garlmgton had told the troops that if the guilty were not discovered, all
would be discharged. When no trooper would admit any knowledge of the shooting,
Garlmgton reported that the “men appear to stand together in a determination to
resist the detection of guilt, therefore they should stand together when the penalty
falls ”

The penalty affected 160 men, six of whom were medal-of-honor winners. It
drew applause from the Southern press but severe criticism from the Negro and
much of the Northern press. A number of Republicans vigorously protested, and
the Democrats, Northern and Southern alike, suggested that the President had
delayed issuing the order until the day before the election so that it would not
become an issue m time to alienate the Negro vote.

489

failure to punish in the most signal way such conduct as that which I have
punished in the manner of which you complain There has been the fullest
and most exhaustive investigation of the case. To show you how little the
question of color enters into the matter, I need only point out that when a
white officer was alleged to be guilty in speaking of the incident of comment-
ing unfavorably on the black troops generally, I directed an immediate in-
vestigation into his words and suitable proceedings against him should he
prove to have been correctly quoted.

4136 * TO CHARLES EVANS HUGHES Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 7, 1906

My dear Mr. Hughes : Let me congratulate you most heartily upon the result
in New York. I doubt whether m this crisis we could have elected any other
man but you. Your character, your record of achievement, and finally your
admirable bearing thruout the campaign, gave us the chance to rally far-
sighted and decent citizens to your banner irrespective of party.

You have been fortunate not only in the character of your support, but
in some of the support which you have not received Every honest business-
man, every honest politician, could be trusted to do all that was possible for
you. The politician of shady character was naturally against, and he was quite
right in being against, you. You go into office absolutely unhampered, and I
know well that m dealing with every department of the government under
you you will cut out relentlessly and without regard to consequences every-
thing evil, paying no heed whatever to the influence or opposition of any
man who may be affected thereby Not only the interests of good administra-
tion but the interests of the Republican party demand that not the slightest
crookedness shall be tolerated in any public servant, and that mismanagement
and inefficiency shall be treated with but little more leniency.

Again, I am glad that so many men of big fortunes whose ways have
rightly aroused public indignation have shown themselves either indifferent
or hostile to your election, just as they showed themselves hostile to the elec-
tion of a Republican majority in Congress. We have been cramped for funds
in the management of the Congressional campaign this year, just as we were
cramped for funds in the management of your campaign in New York State
— while your opponent had at his disposal the most ample supply A number
of these big financiers were probably visiting on your head the anger they
felt at my conduct of affairs and that of the Republican Congress last year,
and that of the executive officers under me. These men, who profess to be
“conservatives,” have shown by their actions that they object even more to an
executive who invokes the law against them when they have violated the law
than they do to a demagog who seeks to excite the mob to plunder them. In
this contest they seemed to show a complete lack of moral sense in the matter,
and to feel merely that they preferred to trust to influencing by improper

490

methods agitators who howled against them, rather than submit to the action
of honest but resolute men, who would defend them without hesitation if
they were menaced by a mob, but who, equally without hesitation, insist
upon their obeying the law, and insist upon the law being so framed as to
secure to all men, so far as law can secure it, an approximate equality both of
burden and of opportunity. The corrupt corporations need the knife as much
as the corrupt politicians.

I feel that you and I, my dear Mr. Hughes, approach our work m the
same spirit, and I wish you Godspeed in performing the heavy task
which the people of the State of New York have laid on your shoulders.
Faithfully yours

P.S. After I return from Panama, would you be able to come down and
spend a night with me?

[Handwritten] The N. Y. Press has really been an aid to Hearst in this
campaign.

4137 • 10 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 8, 1906

Dear Will: Upon my word I do not know which to be the more proud of,
what Root did in New York or what you did m Idaho. Naturally I am over-
joyed at the victory for civilization which has been won by Hughes in
New York and Gooding in Idaho. But win or lose, I wanted the administra-
tion to be up to the hilt in the contests in both States, and I am so proud and
pleased at the fearlessness, the utter indifference to mean personal and
demagogic considerations, and the extraordinary efficiency, with which you
and Root handled yourselves. In your two letters I am convinced that you
have described the contest in Idaho with exact nicety. Dubois 1 a couple of
years ago practically proposed to me, thru Loeb, that he would support the
Philippine tariff or any other measure the administration was interested in if
I would join in and help him out on the Mormon matter, which he has used
as a simple cloak for his personal ambition. Think of Norman Hapgood
turning Collier’ s Weekly into an organ against Gooding on the ground that
those infamous scoundrels of the Western Federation of Miners were mar-
tyrs' I did not know that Hull House had gone into that wicked folly also.
I knew Steffens was inclined to go into it, for he has succeeded in getting
completely twisted, and has recently written an article on Hearst which, tho
faintly condemning him, is in reality an endorsement of him.

Well, we have won all along the fine and everything is as satisfactory as
possible. I cannot sufficiently congratulate you upon the great part you have
played in the contest. I am rather amused at your feeling a little nervous
about the possible attack by the Democrats against me because of the part

’Fred Thomas Dubois, Silver Republican from Idaho, United States Senator, 1891-

1897, 1901-1907.

491

Root and you played in New York and Idaho. If they give me the chance to
answer, I shall say that in both those States the contest was not a party
contest but a fight for civilization, and that the Democratic party should now
dissolve, so indelibly branded is it with shame by the part it played in both
States. By George, I sometimes wish I was not in the White House and could
be on the stump and speak frankly! Ever yours

Resources and Commitments

November 1906— October 1907

4138 TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

On Board U.S.S. Louisiana, November, 1906 1

Dear Kermit . So far the trip has been a great success, and I think Mother
has really enjoyed it. As for me I of course feel a little bored as I always do
on shipboard, but I have brought on a great variety of books, and am at this
moment reading Milton’s prose works, Tacitus and a German novel called
Jorn Uhl Mother and I walk briskly up and down the deck together or else
sit aft under the awning or in the aftercabm, with the gun ports open and
read, and I also spend a good deal of time on the forward bridge and some-
times on the aft bridge, and of course have gone over the ship to inspect it
with the Captain. It is a splendid thing to see one of these men-of-war, and it
does really make one proud of one’s country. Both the officers and the en-
listed men are as fine a set as one could wish to see.

It is a beautiful sight, these three great war vessels steaming southward in
close column, and almost as beautiful at night when we see not only the
lights but the loom through the darkness of the ships astern. We are now in
the tropics and I have thought a good deal of the time over eight years ago
when I was sailing to Santiago in the fleet of warships and transports. It
seems a strange thing to think of my now being President, going to visit the
work of the Panama Canal which I have made possible.

Mother, very pretty and dainty m white summer clothes, came up on
Sunday morning to see inspection and review, or whatever they call it, of
the men. I usually spend half an hour on deck before Mother is dressed. Then
we breakfast together alone; have also taken lunch alone, but at dinner have
two or three officers to dme with us. Doctor Rixey is along and is a perfect
dear as always.

November 14th.

The fourth day out was in some respects the most interesting. All the
forenoon we had Cuba on our right and most of the forenoon and part of
the afternoon Haiti on our left, and in each case green, jungly shores and
bold mountains — two great, beautiful, venomous tropic islands. These are
historic seas and Mother and I have kept thinking of all that has happened m
them since Columbus landed at San Salvador, (which we also saw), the
Spanish explorers, the buccaneers, the English and Dutch seadogs and adven-
turers, the great English and French fleets, the desperate fighting, the tri-
umphs, the pestilences, all the turbulence, the splendor and the wickedness,
and the hot, evil, riotous life of the old planters and slave-owners, Spanish,
French, English and Dutch; their extermination of the Indians and bringing
in of negro slaves, the decay of most of the islands, the turning of Haiti
into a land of savage negroes, who have reverted to voodooism and cannibal-
ism, the effort we are now making to bring Cuba and Porto Rico forward.

1 This letter, undated, was probably written on Novembei 11 Roosevelt had sailed
from Norfolk on November 9 to see “how the ditch is getting along”

495

Today is calm and beautiful as all the days have been on our trip. We
have just sighted the highest land of Panama ahead of us, and we shall be at
anchor by two o’clock this afternoon, just a little less than six days from the
time we left Washington. Your loving father

4139 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE RoOSCVelt MSS .

On Board U.S.S. Louisiana , November 12, 1906

To the Secretary of the Navy : I am very much pleased with the Louisiana ,
not only with her officers and crew, but with the type of the ship. I cannot
help feeling, however, that it would have been far better to have substituted
ten-inch guns for the eight and seven-inch guns aboard here, and five-inch
guns or four-inch guns for repelling torpedo boats, instead of the three-inch
guns.

Moreover the coal arrangements are bad. This can be changed, and I
would like to have the change made so that the coal will be delivered directly
from the upper deck to the bunkers. 1

4140 • TO KERM1T ROOSEVELT RoOSCVelt MSS.

U.S.S Louisiana , At Sea, November 20, 1906

Dear Hermit: Our visit to Panama was most successful as well as most inter-
esting. We were there three days and we worked from morning till night.
The second day I was up at a quarter to six and got to bed at a quarter of
twelve, and I do not believe that m the intervening time, save when I was
dressing, there were ten consecutive minutes when I was not busily at work
in some shape or form. For two days there uninterrupted tropic rains with-
out a glimpse of the sun, and the Chagres River rose in a flood higher than
any for fifteen years, so that we saw the climate at its worst. It was just what
I desired to do.

It certainly adds to one’s pleasure to have read history and to appreciate
the picturesque. When on Wednesday we approached the coast and the
jungle-covered mountains loomed clearer and clearer until we could see the
surf beating on the shores, while there was hardly a sign of human habitation,
I kept thinking of the four centuries of wild and bloody romance, mixed
with abject squalor and suffering, which made up the history of the Isthmus
until three years ago. I could see Balboa crossing at Darien, and the wars
between the Spaniards and the Indians, and the settlement and the building
up of the quaint walled Spanish towns; and the trade, across the seas by
galleon, and over land by pack train and river canoe, in gold and silver, in

^he coaling arrangements were changed at a cost of $13,000 shortly after the
Louisiana returned From Panama The President’s comment on the armament was
unexpectedly mild, for the Louisiana carried an elaborately complicated set of rifles
including twelve-, eight-, seven-, and three-inch guns

496

precious stones, and then the advent of the buccaneers, and of the English
seamen, of Drake and Frobisher and Morgan, and many, many others, and
the wild destruction they wrought. Then I thought of the rebellion against
the Spanish dominion, and the uninterrupted and bloody civil wars that
followed, the last occurring when I became President, wars, the victorious
heroes of which have their pictures frescoed on the quaint rooms of the
palace at Panama city, and in similar palaces in all the other capitals of these
strange, turbulent little half-caste civilizations. Meanwhile the Panama rail-
road had been built by Americans over a half a century ago, with appalling
loss of life, so that it is said, of course with exaggeration, that every sleeper
laid represented the death of a man. Then the French canal company started
work, and for two or three years did a good deal until it became evident that
the task far exceeded its powers; and then to miscalculation and inefficiency
was added the hideous greed of adventurers, trying each to save something
from the general wreck, and the company closed with infamy and scandal.

Now we have taken hold of the job We have difficulties with our own
people, of course, I haven’t a doubt that it will take a little longer and cost
a little more than men now appreciate, but I believe that the work is being
done with a very high degree both of efficiency and honesty; and I am im-
mensely struck by the character of American employees who are engaged
not merely in superintending the work, but in doing all the jobs that need
skill and intelligence. The steam shovels, the dirt trains, the machine shops,
and the like are all filled with American engineers, conductors, machinists,
boilermakers, carpenters From the top to the bottom these men are so hardy,
so efficient, so energetic, that it is a real pleasure to look at them. Stevens,
the head engineer is a big fellow, a man of daring and good sense, and burly
power All of these men are quite as formidable, and would if it were neces-
sary do quite as much in battle as the crews of Drake and Morgan; but as it
is they are doing a work of infinitely more lasting consequence Nothing
whatever remains to show what Drake and Morgan did. They produced no
real effect down here. But Stevens and his men are changing the face of the
continent, are doing the greatest engineering feat of the ages, and the effect
of their work will be felt while our civilization lasts. I went over everything
that I could possibly go over in the time at my disposal. I examined the
quarters of married men and single men, white men and negroes I went over
the ground of the Gatun and La Boca dams; went through Panama and
Colon, and spent a day in the Culebra cut, where the great work is being
done. There the huge steam shovels are hard at it; scooping huge masses of
rock and gravel and dirt previously loosened by the drillers and dynamite
blasters, loading it on trains which take it away to some dump, either in the
jungle or where the dams are to be built. They are eating steadily into the
mountain cutting it down and down. Little tracks are laid on the side hills,
rocks blasted out, and the great ninety-five ton steam shovels work up like
mountain howitzers until they come to where they can with advantage begm

497

their work of eating into and destroying the mountainside. With intense
energy men and machines do their task, the white men supervising matters
and handling the machines, while the tens of thousands of black men do the
rough manual labor where it is not worth while to have machines do it. It
is an epic feat, and one of immense significance.

The deluge of rain meant that many of the villages were knee-deep in
water, while the flooded rivers tore through the tropic forests It is a real
tropic forest, palms and bananas, breadfruit trees, bamboos, lofty ceibas, and
gorgeous butterflies and brilliant colored birds fluttering among the orchids.
There are beautiful flowers, too. All my old enthusiasm for natural history
seemed to revive, and I would have given a good deal to have stayed and
tried to collect specimens. It would be a good hunting country too, deer and
now and then jaguars and tapir, and great birds that they call wild turkeys,
there are alligators in the rivers. One of the trained nurses from a hospital
went to bathe in a pool last August and an alligator grabbed him by the legs
and was making off with him, but was fortunately scared away, leaving the
man badly injured.

I tramped everywhere through the mud Mother did not do this roughest
work, and had time to see more of the really picturesque and beautiful side
of the life, and really enjoyed herself Your loving father

P.S. The Gatun dam will make a lake miles long, and the railroad now
goes at what will be the bottom of this lake, and it was curious to think that
in a few years great ships would be floating in water ioo feet above where
we were.

4141 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSCVelt MSS .

Telegram Ponce, Porto Rico, November 21, 1906

Discharge is not to be suspended unless there are new facts of such im-
portance as to warrant your cabling me. 1 I care nothing whatever for the
yelling of either the politicians or the sentimentalists. The offense was most
heinous and the punishment I inflicted was imposed after due deliberation.
All I shall pay heed to is the presentation of facts showing the official reports
to be in whole or in part untrue, or clearly exculpating some individual man
If any such facts shall later appear I can act as may be deemed advisable, but
nothing has been brought before me to warrant the suspension of the order,
and I direct that it be executed.

4142 * TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS

Personal U.S.S. Louisiana , At Sea, November 23, 1906

My dear Sir George * I am on my way back from a most interesting trip to
Panama, including a stop at Porto Rico. Porto Rico is being admirably

1 Taft, yielding to protests against the dismissal of the three Negro companies, had

suspended the President’s order pending further advice from Roosevelt

498

governed by a set of as nice young fellows as one could find anywhere; but
I suppose in its administration it does not differ materially from many similar
dependencies which your people are administering. But Panama is unique.
There the greatest engineering feat of the ages is being attempted. It is the
kind of work our people are peculiarly fitted to do, and it is also the kind of
work in the doing of and commenting on which they show not only their
best but their worst characteristics. The men I have engaged upon it include
Stevens, the big engineer, a rough and tumble westerner, born in the Maine
backwoods, who has worked his way to the top of his profession by sheer
practical skill displayed in the roughest kind of field work, and Gorgas, the
health officer, a fairly good administrator and more than a fairly good
scientific doctor of the kind whose science takes the severely practical shape
of dealing with the health problems of the tropics. Three years ago the name
Panama was a byword for all that is unhealthy and dangerous in tropic
countries Now, of the five thousand American employees and of the twelve
hundred women and children who are with them, there was not one died of
disease during the last three months. The West India negroes suffer a great
deal more, but their leading disease is pneumonia, due to the impossibility of
making them change their clothes when they come in wet, and even among
these West India negroes the death rate is smaller than in their own islands.
By the way, the Jamaican Governor, Swettenham, has been extremely offen-
sive in all his dealings with us and has made it so disagreeable that I think
we shall now have to try to get Chinese laborers As far as I could find out
the other Jamaica people do not sympathize with him at all, nor do those in
Barbados, on the contrary, most people except himself in the two islands
seem to feel that we are caring well for the laborers whom we take, and that
it is an advantage to the islands to have this outlet for their labor. But
Swettenham seems to be what is nowadays a rather rare individual, an old
school tory with the old school tory tendency to dislike everything Ameri-
can. It is a quality which is entertaining in Blackwood , or the Saturday
Review 9 but less entertaining in a government official with whom I am
obliged to deal.

In a very amusing and very kindly, and on the whole not unjust, book, in
which Captain Younghusband describes the Philippines, he spoke of our
army out there as looking not like an army in the European sense but like
the inhabitants of a Rocky Mountain mining town I know just what he
meant, and the comparison was not unfair, and m some ways indeed was
more exact than he realized. Our army in service now wears a flannel shirt,
light or heavy, khalu trousers, leggings and a soft slouch hat, and each man
on the average believes in his work and has much power of initiative Well,
m dress and traits the five thousand men on the Isthmus keep making me
think of our army as I have actually seen it busily at work at some half
warlike, half administrative, problem. Of course there are many exceptions,
but on the average the white man on the Isthmus feels that he is doing a big

499

job which will reflect credit on the country, and is working with hearty
good will. He is well housed and well fed. He often has his wife and children
with him, in which case he lives in a really delightful cottage, the home life
being just such as one reads about in Octave Thanet’s stories of the West and
of American labor people. Did not I once send you a volume of her stories 5

Mrs. Roosevelt went down with me, and we have made the trip on one of
our big battleships, the Louisiana. I do not like a sea voyage myself, tho of
course I am very much interested in this great battleship and in her officers
and crew. The other day we dined at the chief petty officers’ mess, and the
men are of the type which make the strength of our navy and of yours. I
have had a good deal of time for reading, naturally, and among other things
have gone over Milton’s prose works. What a radical republican, and what
a stanch partisan, and what an intense protestant the fine old fellow was'
Subject to the inevitable limitations of his time and place, he was curiously
modem too. He advocated liberty of conscience to a degree that few then
did, or at least few of those who were not only philosophers like Milton but
also like Milton in active public life, and his plea for liberty of the press is
great reading now. His essay on divorce is curious rather than convincing,
and while it is extremely modern in some ways it is not modem at all in the
contemptuous arrogance of its attitude toward women. Personally I like his
Eikonoklastes; but then I am radical about punishing people like Charles the
Second or Jefferson Davis. It may be very unwise to kill either, but it is
eminently righteous to do so — so far that is as anything is righteous which
is not in its deepest and truest sense also expedient.

I have also been reading Dill’s account of Roman society from Nero to
Marcus Aurelius . 1 You, my dear sir, who (like my friend Lodge) are so
blest as to read all the best of the Greeks or Latins in the original, must not
look down too scornfully upon us who have to make believe that we are
contented with Emerson’s view of translations. I am now trying to get some
really good English edition of Tacitus. I want to see if it is possible to pick
up some old edition with good print and good binding, and then some new
edition like the new ones of Polybius and Thucydides.

After I read Milton and Tacitus until I felt that I could stand them no
longer, I devoured short stories and novels. In the novels I am sorry to say I
usually have to go back to those I have read already. But in short stories I
take a never-ending delight in those I am just reading by Jacobs, for instance.
Do you ever waste time with a sufficiently hght heart to be willing to read
Jacobs’ accounts of England’s humbler seafaring folk and their surroundings 5

With great regard, Sincerely yours

‘Sir Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London, 1904).

500

4143 * T0 permit Roosevelt Roosevelt Mss.

U.S.S Louisiana , At Sea, November 23, 1906

Dear Kermit: We had a most interesting two days at Porto Rico. We landed
on the south side of the island and were received by the Governor and the
rest of the administration, including nice Mr. Laurance Grahame, 1 then were
given a reception by the Alcalde and people of Ponce; and then went straight
across the island in automobiles to San Juan on the north shore. It was an
eighty mile trip and really delightful. The road wound up to the high moun-
tains of the middle island, through them, and then down again to the flat
plain on the north shore The scenery was beautiful. It was as thoroly tropical
as Panama but much more livable. There were palms, tree-ferns, bananas,
mangoes, bamboos and many other trees and multitudes of brilliant flowers.
There was one vine called the dream vine with flowers as big as great white
water lilies, which close up tight m the daytime and bloom at night. There
were vines with masses of brilliant purple and pink flowers, and others with
masses of little white flowers, which at nighttime smell deliciously. There
were trees studded over with huge white flowers, and others, the flam-
boyants, which as I saw m the campaign at Santiago are a mass of large scarlet
blossoms in June, but which now had shed them. I thought the tree ferns es-
pecially beautiful. The towns were just such as you saw m Cuba, quaint,
brilliantly colored, with the old church or cathedral fronting the plaza, and
the plaza always full of flowers. Of course the towns are dirty, but they are
not nearly as dirty and offensive as those of Italy, and there is something
pathetic and childlike about the people. We are giving them a good govern-
ment and the island is prospering, I never saw a finer set of young fellows
than those engaged in the administration. Mr. Grahame, whom of course you
remember, is the intimate friend and ally of the leaders of the administration,
that is of Governor Beekman Wmthrop and of the Secretary of State, Mr.
Regis Post. Grahame is a perfect trump and such a handsome athletic fellow,
and a real Sir Galahad. Any wrongdoing, and especially any cruelty makes
him flame with fearless indignation. He perfectly delighted the Porto Ricans
and also immensely puzzled them by coming in his Scotch kilt to a govern-
ment ball. Accordingly at my special request I had him wear his kilt at the
state dinner and reception the night we were at the palace. You know he is a
descendant of Montrose, and although born m Canada, his parents were
Scotch and he was educated in Scotland. Do tell Mr. Bob Fergie about him
and his kilts when you next write him.

We spent the night at the palace, which is half palace and half castle, and
was the residence of the old Spanish governors It is nearly four hundred
years old, and is a delightful building, with quaint gardens and a quaint sea
wall looking over the bay There were colored lanterns lighting up the

1 Laurance Hill Grahame, Commissioner of Interior for Porto Rico, met Roosevelt

while Albany correspondent for the New York Post, 1899-1904.

5 01

gardens for the reception and the view across the bay in the moonlight was
lovely. Our rooms were as attractive as possible too, except that they were
so very airy and open that we found it difficult to sleep — not that that
much mattered, as thanks to the earliness of our start and the lateness of our
reception we had barely four hours in which we even tried to sleep.

The next morning we came back in automobiles over different and even
more beautiful roads. The mountain passes through and over which we
went made us feel as if we were in a tropic Switzerland. We had to cross
two or three rivers where big cream-colored oxen with yokes tied to their
horns pulled the automobiles through the water. At one funny little village
we had an open-air lunch, very good, of chicken and eggs and bread, and
some wine contributed by a wealthy young Spaniard who rode up from a
neighboring coffee ranch.

Yesterday afternoon we embarked again, and that evening the crew
gave a theatrical entertainment on the afterdeck, closing with three boxing
bouts. I send you the program. It was great fun, the audience being equally
enraptured with the sentimental songs about the flag, and the sailor’s truelove
and his «mother» and with the jokes (the most relished of which related to
the fact that bed bugs were supposed to be so large that they had to be shot! )
and the skits about the commissary and various persons and deeds on the
ship. In a way the freedom of comment reminded me a little of the Roman
triumphs, when the excellent legionnaires recited in verse and prose any-
thing they chose concerning the hero in whose deeds they had shared and
whose triumphs they were celebrating. The stage, well lighted, was built on
the aftermost part of the deck. We sat in front with the officers, and the
sailors behind us in masses on the deck, on the aftermost turrets, on the
bridge, and even in the fighting top of the aftermost mast. It was interesting
to see their faces in the light.

Mother was very much tired by her two days on the island, for she
loathes an automobile trip, her hatred for an automobile being quite as
marked as mine for a yacht. I do not care for automobiles for a mere
pleasure ride, but this particular drive could not to my mind have been taken
as pleasantly with anything else. Your loving father

November 24th.

P.S. I forgot to tell you about the banners and inscriptions of welcome
to me in Porto Rico. One of them which stretched across the road had on it
“Welcome to Theodore and Mrs. Roosevelt.” Last evening I really enjoyed
a rather funny experience. There is an Army and Navy Union composed
chiefly of enlisted men, but also of many officers, and they suddenly held a
“garrison” meeting in the torpedo room of this ship. There were about fifty
enlisted men together with the Captain and myself. I was introduced as
“comrade and shipmate Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States ”
They were such a nice set of fellows, and I was really so pleased to be with

502

them, so self-respecting, so earnest, and just the right type out of which to
make the typical American fighting man who is also a good citizen. The
meeting reminded me a good deal of a lodge meeting at Oyster Bay, and of
course these men are fundamentally of the same type as the shipwrights,
railroad men and fishermen whom I meet at the lodge, and who, by the way,
are my chief backers politically and are the men who make up the real
strength of this nation.

L Handwritten ] P S. Nov 27th. I have just got home and received your
interesting letter; I am so glad you told me about Ted and the Pore; the
scamp has not sent me a line.

4144 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Printed 1

Washmgton, November 27, 1906

Ha! Ha 1 One Englishman knows where the U. S. Gov’t really is.

Show this clipping 2 to Aldrich, and tell him it was touching to see the
relief in his face on Saturday night — at the Gridiron when I said I wouldn’t
run again!

N. B. — Don’t give Aldrich my message unless it is one of the days when
he has a sense of humor.

1 Lodge, II, 261-262, this undated letter was placed tentatively on November 27, 1906,
by Lodge.

a Thc enclosed clipping reads

“Our Next Ambassador at Washington”

“To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph

“Sir* The question of the Washington Embassy is just where your admirable
editorial of Friday leaves it If we could persuade such representative citizens to live
m Washington as Washington persuades to live in London, the problem of the ‘most
important post m our diplomacy’ would be easily solved. But such a condition is
quite outside the canons of consideration Mr. Whitelaw Reid has found two
glorious domiciles available, Dorchester House and Wrest I can think of two or
three Englishmen outside F O circles who would represent the Court of St James’s
admirably. But will they leave their splendid homes for the modest house in
Connecticut Avenue and a cottage m Ncwpoit^ 1 No, sir 1 The sacrifice is too great
“We cannot make the diplomatic earth to suit our curves, we must do the best
we can A ‘professional’ now T listening to the Bulbuls m the East is available. The
late Lord Pauncefote was wont to attribute his success on the Potomac largely to
the loyal service of two young men, Mr. Michael Herbert and Mr. Arthur Spring
Rice These two made the all-important study of the Senate it is the Senate body
'which came* on the Government of the United States Mr. Spring Rice is not less
the friend of the President than he is the friend of Senators Allison and Aldrich ,
Senators Lodge and Cullom, he would build a bridge between the White House
and the Capitol, and dearly such a bridge is needed. The only argument against
this appointment is that he is so manifestly the Ambassador the situation requires
that his selection is past praying for f I am not reflecting on the present administra-
tion of the Foreign Office Still, it is fair to recall that Lord Lansdowne did appoint
Sir Michael Herbert

Yours faithfully,

Wyvern ”

503

4145 • TO THEODORE PERRY SHONTS

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, November 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Shonts: There are one or two suggestions which I have to make
as to the work on the Isthmus. In the first place, it seems to me most wise
to make all the preparation in advance before you get the men. I saw only
one or two houses which I should consider unhygienic, but they were one or
two too many, and would give the excuse for scandal of the Poultney-
Bigelow type. Even at the cost of hiring more men I should certainly have
the villages or settlements completed and ready before any big gangs of
laborers are brought to them

Second, as to the negro laborer; I entirely agree with you that as things
are at present we cannot afford to trust to labor from the United States, and
should proceed to get in some Chinese; yet I think that we might also
endeavor to bring our own labor down to the Isthmus. Do you not think
we are pretty nearly m condition to make an effort to bring our labor down
to the Isthmus, advertising for it, stating the advantages, but of course being
scrupulously careful not to overstate them 5 I think this is well worth
considering.

As long as the West India Negroes form so considerable part of the
laboring class, I think we should make a good deal of a change in dealing
with them. The least satisfactory feature of the entire work to my mind was
the arrangement for feeding the negroes Those cooking sheds with their
muddy floors and with the unclean pot which each man had in which he
cooked everything, are certainly not what they should be. I believe that
we should get up government messes, importing if necessary from Jamaica
or Barbados a man and his wife to do the cooking and caring for the mess,
and force the negroes to eat at the mess. Moreover, the very large sick rates
among the negroes, compared with the whites, seems to me to show that a
resolute effort should be made to teach the negro some of the principles of
personal hygiene, notably having one suit to work m and another to sleep in.
Cannot a plan embodying this feature be formulated and an effort made to
operate it? I think that we could afford to board the negro for much less
than he pays now, so that it would represent a positive monetary gain to him,
while we would profit by his better health. Sincerely yours

4146 • to james o’connell Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 27, 1906

My Dear Mr. O’Connell: 1 In reference to the letter of Mr. Holder 2 to you
of September 28th, I have to say that I submitted it for comment to Superin-

1 James O’Connell, president of the International Association of Machinists.

“ Arthur Ernest Holder, machinist and labor advocate, deputy commissioner of the

Iowa Bureau of Labor, 1900-1906, longtime Washington lobbyist for the American

Federation of Labor

504

tendent Brooke , 3 a copy of whose letter to Mr. Stevens I enclose herewith.
I also called before me, while on the isthmus, the four machinists whose
names you gave me and three others who had recently petitioned for a raise
in wages. With these seven men, I went over in detail all of Mr. Holder’s
letter, point by point

As to his first point, that the machinists who have gone to the isthmus
have been required to make their headquarters in the steerage and eat at the
second table in the cabin, this statement generally was untrue. Of the seven
gentlemen questioned, one had the experience mentioned, five had come
down first-class and one second-class. I immediately ordered an investigation
into the case of the one required to go in the steerage and the other who
had gone second-class to see whether there were, at that time, vacancies in the
first-class.

As regards Mr. Holder’s second statement, that no provision is made to
meet the newcomers and assign them quarters on the isthmus, all seven
witnesses agreed that the statement was false. They reported that they were
met as others are met on the boat or immediately after leaving the boat at the
office. One of the gentlemen present, Mr. Severn, stated that there had been
some complaint made of difficulty m finding the office but that he had never
known of it taking even as long as half an hour to find it, so Mr. Holder’s
assertion as to its taking sometimes “a few days,” is incorrect and untrue.

The third point was as to the rates paid not being sufficiently high . 4 All
of the machinists were a unit that this was true. The same complaint was
made to me by the steam-shovel men, the engineers, and conductors, the
carpenters, and the colored laborers from the West Indies; indeed every man
I met with perhaps one or two exceptions, said he thought he ought to be
receiving more wages. The wages are much higher than in the States and
the men receive their lodging. Hitherto the criticism that has been made of
the commission has been on the score that it has paid too high and not too
low wages for the work I have directed Messrs. Shonts and Stevens however
to bring to me a tabulation of the wages paid on the Isthmus as compared

George D Brooke, superintendent of the Division of Motive Power and Machinery
m Panama.

i Of the points made by Holder, only the workmen’s dissatisfaction with wages
caused senous trouble on the Isthmus. In his special message to Congress on the
Panama Canal, delivered December 17, 1906, Roosevelt stated that he planned to
confer with “certain representative labor men here in the United States” on the
canal’s wage situation At the time of his visit to Panama the steam-shovel runners
and crane opeiators were asking for an increase of monthly wages from $210 to
$300 and from $185 to $250 respectively. Dissatisfied with the subsequent decision
authoii7ing a pay increase of five per cent at the end of the first year and three
per cent additional increase at the end of each succeeding year, these men went on
a short, unsuccessful suike m May 1907. This strike marred the commission’s other-
wise excellent labor relations record, Annual Report of the Isthmian Canal Commis-
sion 1907, Senate Document , 60 Cong., 1 sess., no. 55, pp 46-47, Roosevelt’s message
on the canal, Senate Document . , 59 Cong, 2 sess., no 144, p 16, Mack, Land Divided ,
PP 54 i" 543 » No 4 I <$ 2

5 05

with the wages paid on railroad work and government work in the United
States; and I can then answer definitely on this point.

The next point made by Mr Holder about the inversion of the classifi-
cation was sustained by the seven machinists, and in accordance with their
request I directed that the classification should be inverted so as to corre-
spond with that usually employed.

The next matter complained of is that of engaging foremen and sending
them down there. There was a division of opinion among the machinists as
to this. It appeared from the record that out of mneteen foremen now in the
service, sixteen had been promoted from first-class mechanics in the various
classes. This charge would, therefore, appear without substantial foundation.

As for the next charge of Mr. Holder, that as regards the employment of
foreign machinists at a small wage, the seven machinists in the delegation
visiting me, six of whom were Americans and one an Englishman, all agree
that the charge has no foundation whatever.

As to the next charge in connection with the discharge slips, one of the
delegation stated that hardship had occurred through disregard in separating
chums, and not allowing a man to change owing to his inability to get along
with his foreman. The others, however, did not support him m this and one
of them stated affirmatively that he remembered that the Superintendent.
Mr. Brooke announced that if a man could not get on with the foreman, he
would be transferred to another shop and given another chance. Mr. Brooke
stated that this was his invariable practice and that a special effort was made
to prevent chums being separated.

The next charge of Mr. Holder, referring to the six boilermakers, proved
to be untrue. Instead of six, there were only four, one of whom was dis-
missed for unduly absenting himself from work, one for mcompetency, while
the two others, although dismissed for mcompetency and on account of
defective physique, were at once re-employed at other government shops
on lighter work.

As to the overwork beyond the eight-hour limit, there appeared to be
some justification for this complaint. The machinists, on the question of
overtime, however, occupied a diametrically opposite position to that as-
sumed by the railroad engineers and conductors who came to see me. The
conductors and engineers wanted to be employed overtime and be paid for
it, while the machinists objected to being made to work overtime. The
machinists finally came to an entirely satisfactory agreement. They all stated,
of their own accord, that it was absolutely necessary that there should be
a certain amount of overwork, that they recognized this and were willing to
have it done, but that they desired that it should be apportioned among all
the men employed and not, as they alleged at present to be the case, divided
unequally among them. I directed that their suggestion be carried out, that
the emergency overtime work should be apportioned as they requested and

506

limited as much as possible, and a report sent to me thereon after three
months.

I also examined these machinists as to two other matters not mentioned by
Mr. Holder. All seven complained to me of the food at the government hotel
or canteens. Two of them mentioned to me however that it had become
better and that they were now eating there while the other five were eating
at private houses I inquired of thirty or forty other men, steam-shovel
men, conductors, engineers, machinists, carpenters, shipwrights, as to these
government canteens. Three-fourths of them told me that the food was good,
one-fourth that it was not. While on the isthmus I dined at one of these
canteens myself, no one connected with it having an inkling of my purpose.
The bill of fare consisted of soup, native beef, which was good, mashed
potatoes, peas, beets, chili con carne, plum pudding, tea, coffee, and ice cream
— ice cream only appearing twice a week as I found out. One of the news-
papermen, whom I met on the isthmus, told me that a day or two before he
had dined at a canteen and had one of the best meals he had ever eaten. The
meal I had was certainly very good in quality and as to quantity, every man
is allowed to have as much as he desires There are two rooms at the canteen
or hotel, in one of which the guests can sit without their coats, and in one
of which they must put their coats on. I do not think that there was a suffi-
cient justification for the complaints of the food. There are always a certain
number of men who may be very good fellows in most ways, who neverthe-
less are sure to grumble both about their food and lodging. The meal is
quite as good as one can get for 50 cents in the ordinary American hotel.

The other complaint proved to be well justified Two of the machinists
who were living at a certain house at Empire reported to me that it was an
old house not particularly satisfactory and that the water closets were in a
filthy and repulsive condition. The next morning I visited the place myself
and found both allegations true. The house was an old French house and
although in fairly good condition, not such as I should like to see for the
permanent quarters of the men. The water closets were in an abominable
condition. I had Dr. Gorgas and Mr. Jackson Smith 5 m to see them. It ap-
peared that new closets with sewer pipes were in process of construction,
and as I saw myself, they were within about a week of erection. Nevertheless
this did not excuse the authorities for having permitted the unsanitary and
repulsive condition of the water closet m question to continue. Temporary
closets if only such as are used by soldiers in the field, should have at once
been put up. I gave instructions to Dr. Gorgas that this should be im-
mediately done and that furthermore he should have an immediate examina-
tion of all the water closets on the isthmus and report to me the results. I

G Jackson Smith, head of the Division of Labor and Quarters and a member of the

canal commission after the reorganization of March 1907, was one of the most capable

men on the Isthmus

507

myself visited over twenty of these closets and found only this one which
was in bad condition. Very truly yours

4147 * TO RALPH MONTGOMERY EASLEY Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Easley : I enclose you a copy of a letter I have just sent to Mr.
O’Connell, which explains itself. I refer to the labor situation generally m my
forthcoming report to Congress on the Panama Canal I should like to see
either Mr. Moffett, 1 of whom you speak in your letter of November 3rd, or
his comrade, who went to report on the conditions. I do not agree with Mr
Moffett that there would be any justification to put a member of a labor union
on the commission, in fact I think it would be an absurdity. But I intend to
have thoroly good treatment for the labor man down there. In addition to the
seven machinists I saw a delegation of railroad men, including Mr Dozier,
Mr. Crouse and Mr. Kildea, who complained that they were working over-
time. The machinists had made the same complaint, I found m their case
that their objection to the working overtime was genuine, but they admitted
the necessity of some overtime emergency work every week, but felt it
should be apportioned among them all, and so far as possible minimized. The
railroad men took the exactly opposite view. I found that they did not want
the overtime work stopped; on the contrary, they would violently complain
if it were stopped, because it would mean a cut in their wages, what they
really wanted was, not to be required now and then to lay over a day (which
is to make up for the overtime work), but to be allowed to work on that day,
and to be paid overtime rates for the work. In other words, they wanted
to work more hours than at present, but to have their wages raised. They
seemed to think that the eight-hour law did not mean that they should prac-
tically be limited to eight hours of labor, but merely that they should re-
ceive higher wages and be allowed to work just as much extra as they chose.
I explained to them that this was an entirely false view of the law, and that
if I should adopt the construction they had at first asked me to put upon
the law, it would merely mean that I should have to cut down their wages
and employ extra men for the different shifts.

They all admitted what the steam-shovel men had already told me,
namely, that the dirt trains must be worked overtime in order that the shovels
may be kept going for eight hours, the engineers and conductors having
a good deal of idle time during the day, but being obliged, of course, to
work, at least in many cases, both before the steam shovels begin and after
they have ended. All of the railroad men agreed that this was perfectly
proper, and their complaint resolved itself down into a demand for an
increase in their wages Their wages were raised materially last March and

1 Edward A Moffett

508

they then professed themselves in writing as entirely satisfied. Their wages
are more than half as high again as in the United States, and the men receive
free lodging in addition, while they get good board for thirty cents a meal
at the government canteens or boarding houses. I have instructed the officers
of the Commission to do everything m their power to reduce the amount of
overtime work, subject of course to not letting the steam shovels remain
idle, and also to bring me the information of which I speak m my letter to
Mr. O’Connell Sincerely yours

4148 • to silas mc bee Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, November 27, 1906

My dear Mr. McBee : Of course I liked your letter. I have been amazed and
indignant at the attitude of the negroes and of shortsighted white sentimen-
talists as to my action. It has been shown conclusively that some of these
troops made a midnight murderous and entirely unprovoked assault upon
the citizens of Brownsville — for the fact that some of their number had
been slighted by some of the citizens of Brownsville, the warranting criti-
cism upon Brownsville, is not to be considered for a moment as provocation
for such a murderous assault. All of the men of the companies concerned,
including their veteran noncommissioned officers, instantly banded together
to shield the criminals. In other words they took action which cannot be
tolerated in any soldiers, black or white, in any policeman, black or white,
and which, if taken generally in the army, would mean not merely that the
usefulness of the army was at an end but that it had better be disbanded in
its entirety at once. Under no conceivable circumstances would I submit to
such a condition of things. There has been great pressure not only by senti-
mentalists but by the northern politicians who wish to keep the negro vote.
As you know I believe m practical politics, and, where possible, I always
weigh well any action which may cost votes before I consent to take it; but
m a case like this, where the issue is not merely one of naked right and
wrong but one of vital concern to the whole country, I will not for one
moment consider the political effect.

There is another side to this also. In that part of my message about lynch-
ing, which you have read, I speak of the grave and evil fact that the negroes
too often band together to shelter their own criminals, which action had an
undoubted effect in helping to precipitate the hideous Atlanta race riots. I
condemn such attitude strongly, for I feel that it is fraught with the gravest
danger to both races. Here, where I have power to deal with it, I find this
identical attitude displayed among the negro troops. I should be recreant to
my duty if I failed by deeds as well as words to emphasize with the utmost
severity my disapproval of it. Sincerely yours

509

4149 ‘ T0 James speyer Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November 27, 1906

My dear Mr. Speyer : I have spoken as strongly as possible for the reorganiza-
tion of our currency laws. I have advocated, tho of course in general terms,
what I think are the essential features in the system proposed by the Bank-
ers’ Association. I do not believe I ought to go into particulars. For instance,
I agree entirely with you that the tax should be very much higher, so as to
make it evident that the circulation was an emergency or stringency circu-
lation.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

4150 • TO VICTOR HOWARD METCALF Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 27, 1906

My dear Secretary Metcalf : Let me begin by complimenting you upon the
painstaking thoroness and admirable temper with which you have been going
into the case of the treatment of the Japanese on the coast. If our treaty con-
tains no “most favored nation” clause then I am inclined to feel as strongly
as you do that we had better take no action to upset the action of the Board
of Education of the City of San Francisco. 1 I had a talk with the Japanese
Ambassador before I left for Panama; read him what I was to say in my
annual message, 2 which evidently pleased him very much, and then told him
that in my judgment the only way to prevent constant friction between the
United States and Japan was to keep the movement of the citizens of each
country into the other restricted as far as possible to students, travelers, busi-
nessmen, and the like; that inasmuch as no American laboring men were try-
ing to get into Japan, what was necessary was to prevent all immigration of
Japanese laboring men — that is, of the coolie class — into the United States;
that I earnestly hoped his Government would stop their coolies, & all their
working men, from coming either to the United States or to Hawaii, He as-
sented cordially to this view and said that he had always been against permit-
ting Japanese coolies to go to America or to Hawaii. 3 Of course the great

*The Japanese Ambassador had protested informally that the action of the San
Francisco board violated the Japanese-American treaty of 1894 which provided
mutual guarantees for Americans residing in Japan and Japanese residing in the
Umted States The federal government had already brought suit to test the order.

2 State Papers , Nat. Ed XV, 385-388

3 Pursuant to the immigration agreement of 1900, Japanese laborers were not issued
passports to come directly from Japan to the United States This prohibition, how-
ever, did not apply to Hawaii and, once in Hawaii, the Japanese coolie had free
access to the mainland It was largely to prevent the Japanese from taking advantage
of this opportunity that the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” of 1907 was arranged. The
diplomatic exchanges and the legislation that formed the basis for the agreement,
completed m late February 1907, are well described in Bailey, Roosevelt and the
Japanese-Amencan Crises , ch. vii, and Jessup, Root } vol II, ch. xxvii

510

difficulty in getting the Japanese to take this view is the irritation caused by
the San Francisco action. I hope that my message will smooth over their
feelings so that the Government will quietly stop all immigration of coolies
to our country. At any rate I shall do my best to bring this about. Sincerely
yours

4151 - TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November 28, 1906

My dear Mr . Bonaparte: I desire that you call the attention of the Chief
Engineer, Mr. Rae, to the following condition affecting the brasses, so-called,
on the new ships of war — battleships like the Louisiana , cruisers like the
West Virginia and Tennessee . x I understand the Maryland had similar trouble,
and doubtless other ships of which I do not know. All of these ships had such
trouble with the brasses as originally put in that it would have been a very
dangerous, and possibly a fatal, experiment, to have sent them (at once) . . .
into active service against an enemy until those brasses had been changed.
By my direction Mr Crank, chief engineer of the Louisiana, reported to me
his experiences of the Louisiana , and also what was shown by a visit he had
just made to the Tennessee at the request of her chief engineer, Lieutenant
Commander Robison. Both of these vessels have (had) . . . the experience
which has, I am informed also befallen the West Virginia and the Maryland,
namely that the antifriction metal, as composed in accordance with the ma-
chinery specifications, page 141 of the pamphlet issued for the Louisiana and
Connecticut, did not function properly.

I understand the reasons why under the Navy Department regulation the
officers and others are enjoined from using or specifying any given proprie-
tary article, although I am not clear that it is wise to adhere to this custom
when it can be shown beyond the possibility of misrepresentation that a
given proprietary article is the best possible m existence for our purpose.
But of course with the antifriction metal in question it is not necessary to
be an engineer to see how essential it is that there should be no uneven wear-
ing away where it is necessary that the bearing surface shall be absolutely
true. As a matter of fact it appears that in all the four ships named the metal
has worn so poorly that each ship has had to, or will have to in the case of
the Tennessee, go to the Navy Yards to have the brasses refitted. In the case
of the Louisiana, and, as I am informed, also in case of the West Virginia and
Maryland, after this refitting the brasses worked well, that is, my under-
standing is that on the West Virginia the difficulty disappeared entirely,
while on the Louisiana, although the brasses have been greatly improved,

1 The condition of the Louisiana! s brass bearings was only one aspect of a general
engineering problem raised by the development of more efficient and more powerful
steam engines. The over-all problems of bearing design, metal lubrication, and
brasses are described in Engineering Magazine , 29 592-594 (July 1905), 32 599-609
(January 1907), 36.469-476, 1023-1026 (December 1908, March 1909).

5 **

there is still some trouble, owing to the metal being too soft. I am not in-
formed as to whether the composition of the new metal put in was changed,
or whether the difference was in the method of fitting, as compared with
the fitting under the contractors. I desire, however, to have Chief Engineer
Rae make a thoro investigation and report to me on this subject, and if pos-
sible I should like to have his report commented on by Messrs Crank and
Robison. Please have this done as soon as possible. There certainly seems to
me to be need of some radical change in the matter

I have already called your attention to the very defective system upon
which the coaling for the ships of the Louisiana class is arranged. I wish to
call the attention of the Department to another matter, and that is the ques-
tion of the lubricant oils allowed aboard her. As a special favor, because the
President was to be aboard, the Louisiana was given oil from the New York
Lubricating Company. It appears that the oil is furnished in compliance with
specifications made as rigid as possible. Nevertheless it appears that under
these specifications we get oils that are not of the best, because the best oils
are furnished by the Standard Oil Company and the New York Lubricating
Company (which for all I know may be affiliated with the Standard Oil
Company). I shall hardly be suspected of favoring the Standard Oil com-
panies but I am absolutely clear that if we find by actual experience from
the reports of our naval officers that we do not get the best quality of oil
under these specifications, and do get it from the Standard Oil or Lubricating
Oil Companies, then for that reason we should purchase all the oil at least
for a certain length of time from those two companies, telling the other
dealers that there will then again be a bidding under which they shall be
allowed to compete, but that they must understand once for all that unless
they give oil of the very best, the Navy will not use it I should like to have
a special report from Chief Engineer Rae on this subject, including detailed
statements from the chief engineers of each of our battleships and armored
cruisers on the subject, together with a report as to what oils are used by
the great ocean steamships on lines like the Cunard and the White Star, and
also what oils are used by the contractors on the trial trips where they have
thousands of dollars at stake on the result

I am informed that on the last speed run of the North Atlantic Fleet the
Maine at its close went into New York practically without a brass left,
thanks to the defects m the lubricant oil and m the white metal I would
like accompanying the reports I have called for above a report from Admiral
Evans on both subjects The admiral of our battleship fleet should be able
to give us the benefit of his practical experience in these matters.

Most of the time we got along well with the coal on the Louisiana , but
we struck a bad supply on one occasion, and the difference m the speed was
so great that I looked into the matter myself Some of this coal looked more
like slate than coal. I then got a report of the coal received on board the
Louisiana for the last six months, which runs as follows

5 12

Place.

Date.

Kind.

Quality.

Supplier.

Norfolk,

June 21,

Pocahontas,

Very bad,

Caster, Curran, and

Bullet.

Norfolk,

Aug. io,

Pocahontas,

Bradford, R. I.,

Sept. 13,

Pocahontas,

Poor,

U.S.N. Coal Depot,

Bradford, R. I.

Newport News,

Oct. 18,

Pocahontas,

Fair,

Berwmd, White

Coal Co.

New York,

Nov. 3,

Powelton-

Sterling,

Good,

Navy Yard, N. Y.

Chiriqui, Pa.,

Nov. 15,

New River,

Fair,

U.S.N. Collier

Hannibal .

Having m mind Secretary Root’s experience while on board the Charles-
ton, where the coal was so bad as repeatedly to delay the Charleston a day
or two beyond her expected time of journey, I asked one of the officers as
to whether they had similar experiences on any other ship. I was informed
that the Texas coaled in Norfolk the latter part of September, before sailing
for Havana, and that the coal was so bad she was unable to make more than
four knots, and had to put into Charleston, South Carolina for another
supply.

It certainly looks to me as if the Navy was being at least occasionally
swindled by certain of the coal companies, and I feel very strongly that
measures should be taken to punish the coal companies and also measures
to increase the seventy of our inspection. I should like a report made to me,
similar to that which I give above for the Louisiana , for all our larger ships,
including the Texas and Charleston , as to the coal they have used for the
past six months. Where the coal has been bad I would like to have the full
reports of the companies furnishing this coal, and whether it is not possible
to refuse to pay them for it, and if not then at least to peremptorily refuse
any further dealings with them. I should also like a report as to the methods
of inspection.

I could not speak too highly of the average standing of the officers and
enlisted men as I found them on board the Louisiana, and as I had previously
found them on the West Virginia and the Missouri . I am satisfied that the
three ships named above are excellent ships of their respective classes The
more I see of the actual service, however, the more convinced I am that
the board of construction should either consist of or be guided by men who
have seen or are to see actual service afloat. Moreover, I should like an
opinion from the general board as to the relative worth of big armored
cruisers, such as we now have, and of battleships. If, as I am informed, the
armored cruiser is as expensive, then inasmuch as it m no shape or way equals
the battleship m fighting efficiency, I should like to know what countervail-
ing advantages, if any, there are which warrant us in continuing the type.

5 1 3

I should furthermore like a report on the possibility of assimilating the
staff titles to those used in the army. The line officer, the fighting man, is
the pivotal man in the navy, and in the army. He is the man who does the
vital work, and the staff officers exist to enable him to do tins work. But he
cannot do it without their aid, and while they must in no sense encroach
upon his prerogatives, he on his part shows mere narrow-minded folly if he
objects to giving them the fullest recognition and aid. In the actual command
of the fighting ship and what pertains to her as a fighting ship, the line officer
of whatever rank must be supreme. His title, moreover, m whatever rank,
should distinguish him from all other men. On the other hand the staff officer
should be understood to hold for rank and position of equal dignity, and
while his title should be differentiated from that of the line officer, it should
be near enough akin to it to mark him off sharply from the civilian, and to
make it evident to what branch of the public service he belongs. The doctor,
for instance, unofficially should be called doctor; it is an absurdity to call a
doctor an admiral, a captain, a general or a colonel. Officially, however,
«both army and» naval surgeons should in my judgment be known by titles
which will indicate not only that they are in the military or naval service,
but their rank therein. Just as the head of the medical department in the
army is known as a surgeon general, so the head of the medical department
in the navy should be known as a surgeon admiral. He should never be called
admiral. He should be called, officially, surgeon admiral, and unofficially
doctor — than which, by the way, no higher title can be given him, if he is
a credit to his profession. Where the term surgeon or doctor cannot be used
in the lower grades, then the title should be captain or commander or lieu-
tenant in the medical department, or something to that effect. The same
should be true of the paymasters’ department. As to this department I wish
much that it could be amalgamated with the line of the navy. I do not see
why line officers could not be detailed to do paymasters’ work. Is it true
that in the army staff duties are performed in almost all cases by men de-
tailed from the line? If so, why can we not secure the same system for the
navy 5

There is an important matter in which I think the practice of the navy
should be assimilated to that of the army. In minor offenses against disci-
pline it is important that the pumshment should be prompt, and there is no
reason whatever why it should be necessary to have it formally approved by
the Department at Washington. For such an offense as staymg over leave,
which may be either very light or comparatively serious, the captain per-
sonally or by delegation to one of his officers, should be allowed to hear
the case and summarily pass upon it, including a fine up to the amount of pay
for the length of time that the offender was out of the ship. There should
be no need of referring a sentence of this kind to Washington for approval.

Can I provide for this by regulation, or is there need of a change in the
law? 2

Last summer I visited the Missouri to see the ship actually at target prac-
tice. As I wanted to go over the ship and to take dinner with the ship’s crew,
and as my time was limited, I did not see the full practice under battle con-
ditions, where very remarkable results have been achieved. But I did see
practice which was not only unheard of but would have been thought ab-
solutely impossible as lately as five years ago. We steamed past a target sev-
enteen feet high and twenty-one feet broad at a distance of about a mile. Not
a shot missed the target. During the period of firing we averaged with each
six-inch gun nine and one-half hits a minute; with each twelve-inch gun one
hit in about fifty seconds.

On board the Missouri I took dinner at the mess of the men, and I saw
the bill of fare and sometimes examined the food of the men every day that
I was on the Louisiana or the West Virginia. A specimen bill of fare, neither
better nor worse than the average and chosen at random, is as follows:

US.S. Louisiana , , November 25th, 1906.

MENU.

Breakfast: — Baked beans, tomato catsup, bread, butter, coffee;

Dinner: — Roast beef, brown gravy, string beans, sweet potatoes, cottage pud-
ding, vanilla sauce, bread, coffee;

Supper: — Cold boiled ham, canned peaches, bread, butter, tea.

This bill of fare was prepared in accordance with the new navy ration as
enacted into law at the last session of Congress.

I also dined on the Louisiana at the chief petty officers’ mess. I inspected
all three ships most minutely and I cannot speak too highly of the arrange-
ments for the comfort and cleanliness of the men.

The exceptional men among the enlisted men can become commissioned
officers. There is an opening for a dozen such every year. Last year there
were eight appointed. Since this method of appointment of officers was be-
gun about five years ago, some twenty-five have been thus appointed.

Not only have I been immensely impressed, during the somewhat inti-
mate association I have had with the enlisted men on the Louisiana, West
Virginia, and Missouri, with their fine character and physique, with their
ability m their profession, and with their attitude as self-respecting American
citizens, but I have been equally impressed with the great advantages a career
in the United States Navy offers to the average self-respecting young Amer-
ican. The hygienic conditions on our ships are admirable, the men in the
vast majority of cases improve steadily in health and strength during their
time of enlistment, and if they are young men the improvement year by

3 Court-martial procedures, like most of the Navy’s administrative and personnel
methods, were still those of a small sailing-ship navy. For a good review of the
current plans for reform, see J. P. Morton, “The Summary Court-Martial — Past,
Present, and Future,” Naval Institute Proceedings , 34 1199-1206 (June 1908).

5*5

year is marked. The food is excellent; of course it grows monotonous, and
now and then there will be some cause for complaint; but to say this is to
say what is true of any college or boarding school or hotel. The men are
trained to a very high degree of efficiency, and this develops their character
and self-respect, as the achievement of proficiency in any honorable profes-
sion necessarily does. Furthermore, they have plenty of time for self-
improvement. They have a large library at their command, and I have been
struck at seeing how many of them spend much spare time in reading, not
only for amusement but also for instruction. I am informed that it is a com-
mon thing for them to be engaged in courses in connection with the so-called
correspondence schools which now play a considerable figure in our national
education. The tendency, therefore, is for the enlisted man steadily to im-
prove himself while he is in the service. He can also rise steadily in his pro-
fession, and, aside from the exceptional chances which are open to the excep-
tional man, there is open to the ordinary good man who is persevering and
does his duty, the likelihood of achieving rank as a chief petty officer or
warrant officer; both of them positions of real importance, which it is an
honor to hold. Finally, after twenty years of service afloat, the man is given
employment on shore at naval stations or on receiving ships; and after thirty
years the man retires on three-fourths of his enlisted pay, which will aggre-
gate probably seventy dollars a month. This means that a man who has entered
at twenty can at fifty retire with a pension of nine hundred dollars a year. I
doubt if the average enlisted man’s brother or cousin who has stayed in civil
life is as well off at the corresponding age, or as well able to take care of his
wife and children; and certainly no class of our citizens of any kind pro-
duces a higher grade of citizenship than is to be found in those who man the
ships of the national navy. Very truly yours

[. Handwritten ] On my return from Panama, we put the Louisiana up to
a speed of 18% knots — a half better than her contract speed. The Tennes-
see, our escort was then using but 10 boilers, and yet with the greatest ease
she came up alongside us at will, she also can go over her contract speed.

4152 • TO WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 28, 1906

My dear White. I have your letter of the 24th instant. Do write me at once
about Judge Dickerson and also about Judge Townsend. 1 I am rather con-
cerned at what you say about Judge Townsend, for my impression is that I
have heard very well of him. Do let me know as fully and as soon as possible
about them.

'Joseph T. Dickerson and Hosea Townsend were both federal district judges in
Indian territory. The court in which they served was to be eliminated as soon as
Oklahoma was admitted as a state Neither man was appointed to a judgeship m the
court which replaced theirs.

516

I have been reading the advance sheets of your article about me, 2 and I
need hardly say that I very sincerely appreciate what you have written.
Whether I deserve what you say or not, I am at any rate very glad that a
man whom I respect and admire as much as I do you should think I deserve
it. There is one thing which I did not like, and that is your even by implica-
tion assuming that I or my friends could think of my position as being in any
shape or way akin to that of Washington or Lincoln or Franklin — the men
of the great crises, the men who I think we can truthfully say are great fig-
ures in the history of the world. Down at bottom I think you and I feel
much alike as to this question of a man’s place in history, his place m litera-
ture. I am not in the least concerned as to whether I will have any place in
history, and, indeed, I do not remember ever thinking about it. Without be-
ing able clearly to formulate the reasons for my philosophy, I am perfectly
clear as to the philosophy itself: I want to be a straight and decent man and
do good service; and just as the officers and crew of a big battleship feel,
each of them, if they are worth their salt, that it is quite enough reward to
be one of the men actively engaged in doing the work aboard that battleship,
so I feel it is in itself an ample reward to have been engaged with Root and
Taft and Moody and Garfield and all the honest, brave, decent fellows who
are trying m practical fashion to realize ideals of good government. I want
to feel, when I leave two years hence, that I have played my part honestly
and well. While I live it will be a great satisfaction if I can feel this, and I
should like my descendants to know it, and I should like to feel that those
who know me and care for me, and whom I value, will also feel it. But aside
from this it does not seem to me that after a man is dead it matters very
much whether it is a little longer or a little shorter before the inevitable
oblivion, steadily flooding the sands of time, effaces the scratches on the sand
which we call history. As the ages roll by in the life of this globe, small in-
deed does the difference seem between the few weeks’ remembrance of the
average hard-working, clean-living citizen, and the few years, or few hun-
dreds of years, or few thousands of years, before the memory of the mighty
fades into the dim gray of time and then vanishes in the blackness of eternity.

Give my love to the family — Mrs. White and both babies. Faithfully
yours

4153 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Taft MSS. 0

Memorandum Washington, Undated 1

Secy of War: We must not fail to have a full set of affidavits in the Browns-
ville matter when Congress meets Very important

“William Allen White, “Roosevelt A Force for Righteousness,” McClure's Maga-
zine, 28.386-394 (February 1907).

1 This undated note, in Roosevelt’s hand, was probably written about November 28,

1906, the day after Roosevelt’s return to Washington.

5 17

4154 ' T0 THOMAS E. DRAKE

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, November 29, 1906

My dear Mr. Drake: Will you read thru the enclosed memorandum^ I as-
sume that you will not endorse any proposal that the legislatures shall fix the
salaries to be paid officers of insurance companies. I should deem such action
of questionable validity in law, and unquestionably grossly improper whether
the law would or would not permit it. I can hardly suppose that there is seri-
ous endeavor to take such action, 1 Sincerely yours

4155 * TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, December 4, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I have just received your letters of November 30th 1
and December 1st and enclosures. I shall go over both carefully. It is evident,
however, from what appears in portions of your letter of November 30th,
that as to some of the matters therein contained I shall have to call for reports
from the Department of Justice before I am able to act.

There is one part of your letter, however, as to which I can act at once,
and that is in reference to the regulation providing for notice to remove fences
that are held to be illegal within sixty days from the receipt of said notice.
You speak of the idea being absurd that this regulation contemplated immu-
nity from prosecution of this class of offenses until complaint is made and for
sixty days thereafter. You add that the fact that the regulation has been so
pleaded in excuse or extenuation of the offense by those who have broken the
law forcefully suggests the necessity for its abrogation or modification. I en-
tirely agree with this latter statement. I find that as a matter of fact practically
everybody has accepted this requirement of notice as constituting a license
for the illegal fences to stand until the notice for their removal was given.
Indeed, I am obliged to say that to me this certainly seems to be the natural
interpretation to be put upon it. In any event I am convinced that to ninety-
nine men out of a hundred this seems the only possible interpretation, and if
it is not the interpretation, then the notice itself is misleading and mischie-
vous. In either event, therefore, it seems to me clear that the notice should be

1 Drake, the federal Superintendent of Insurance, with Roosevelt’s consent, sent
copies of the President’s letter to all state insurance commissioners. Learning of
this, John Sharp Williams and Democratic Congressman Joseph T. Robinson of
Arkansas in January accused Roosevelt of exercising secretly an improper influence
to prevent a desirable end Robinson suggested that Paul Morton, to protect his
own salary, had inspired the President’s letter Robinson also introduced a
resolution requesting information from Roosevelt about the letter While the
resolution remained m committee, Roosevelt destroyed the issue Williams and
Robinson had sought to create by admitting that he had written the letter, divulg-
ing its contents, and defending his view, see St. Louis Republic , January n, 1907.

1 Hitchcock’s letter of November 30 is reprinted in House Report , 62 Cong , 3 sess ,
no 1335, pp. 26-32

repealed. In order that the repeal may not work hardship to innocent people
who have been misled by the notice itself, I think the repeal should be made
as publicly as possible, and should be announced as taking effect on a date
sixty days after the announcement is made by the Department. In other
words, it should be announced that from and after such a date, sixty days
after the date of the announcement, the Department will proceed against all
owners of illegal fences without giving them any notice . 2

I entirely sympathize with you m your views of the way to regard our
public domain, and of the necessity for a rigid enforcement of the laws for
its protection

I also note what you say as to “the powerful interests which have aggres-
sively exerted every agency they could command to weaken the hand of the
law”; and I well know that such exist The land prosecutions undertaken in
several states have conclusively shown their existence. You say that “local
land officers” have been “subservient to the purposes of these powerful in-
terests,” and that “their machinations seemingly have at times not been with-
out paralyzing effect upon the machinery of justice,” and that “too fre-
quently the officers of the law appear to have been under the bewitching
spell of their powers”, that “the punishment imposed by the courts has in
many cases been so conspicuously inadequate as to encourage rather than
deter violations of the law”, and you close by saying that too many of those
charged with the administration of the law “are bringing reproach upon the
public service.” Of course I cannot proceed against the judges unless infor-
mation is furnished me of a character that would warrant my laying it before
Congress with a view to their impeachment. But the local land officers and
other executive officers charged with the administration of the law can be
proceeded against by me. I have sent a copy of your letter to Commissioner
Richards for a full report and return I have also sent a copy of it to Senator
Warren, with a request that he make any comment he may desire on it and
return it to me I have also sent a copy, and all the exhibits accompanying
your letter, to the Department of Justice, with a request for a full report on
the case of the District Attorney of Wyoming, for comment upon that por-
tion of your letter in which you state that “m many cases the manner in
which prosecutions are conducted and disposed of is well-calculated to in-
spire a public belief that the administration of justice in these cases is a
sham,” and for comment upon all the other portions of your letter that deal
with the Department of Justice.

I wish a report from the Department of Justice upon the matters men-
tioned above because it is obviously useless to attempt to secure justice thru
the courts unless the officials thru whom the attempt is made are entirely
trustworthy. If necessary I shall appoint a special assistant to the Attorney

a The Interior Department issued a circular in January 1907 ordering immediate

prosecution after April 1, 1907, of all those engaged in the illegal fencing of public

lands.

5 1 9

General to take care of the cases in Wyoming, just as I appointed a special
assistant to the Attorney General to take care of the cases in Oregon. Mean-
while, please give me the names of all local or other officials, whether of the
Land Office or of the Department of Justice, who you have reason to believe
have been derelict m their duty in these matters, together with a full state-
ment of the facts upon which you base your belief in each case As regards
the officials in your own Department, I should also like a statement as to
the action taken by you in regard to their dereliction.

There is one more question I should like to have answered. In what you
say about the administration of justice it is difficult to be certain whether
you mean that there has been failure on the part of the Department in Wash-
ington or failure merely on the part of local officials. If you feel that there
has been a failure as regards the Department of Justice in Washington, I
should hke specifications in reference thereto, because it seems to me that
Mr. Moody should have a chance to answer before he goes out of office. Sin-
cerely yours

4156 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT RoOSevelt MSS.

Washington, December 5, 1906

Dear Kennit: I have written Mr. Fergie. I enclose the program of the enter-
tainment and also the menu of the dinner given us by the Chief Petty Offi-
cers’ Mess.

As Mother is away, I have been doing what little I could for Archie and
Quentin. It has chiefly taken the shape of reading to them m the evening
what the absurd little geese call “I” stories. Being translated this term in-
cludes all hunting stories I read them, which are naturally told in the first
person, the little boys evidently have a vague feeling that being thus told in
the first person they all somehow represent the deeds of the same individual.
My reading for the last two evenings to them has been a most satisfactorily
lurid Man-eating Lion story. After breakfast this morning Ethel started to
school in high spirits driving Molhe, her high spirits being due to the fact
that she anticipated that Molhe would balk, and thereby furnish excitement

I have been a little puzzled over the Nobel prize. It appears that there
is a large sum of money — they say about $40,000 — that goes with it Now,
I hate to do anything foolish or quixotic and above all I hate to do anything
that means the refusal of money which would ultimately come to you chil-
dren. But Mother and I talked it over and came to the conclusion that while
I was President at any rate, and perhaps anyhow, I could not accept money
given to me for making peace between two nations, especially when I was
able to make peace simply because I was President. To receive money for
making peace would m any event be a little too much like being given money
for rescuing a man from drowning, or for performing a daring feat in war
Of course there was the additional fact that what I did I was able to do be-

520

cause I was President. Altogether Mother and I felt that there was no alterna-
tive and that I would have to apply the money to some public purpose. 1 But
I hated to have to come to the decision, because I very much wisht for the
extra money to leave all you children

Yes, I saw Robinson’s poem, which you had already shown me, and I
like it. He certainly has a touch of genius in him. Your loving father

4157 • TO EUHU ROOT Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 5, 1906

To the Secretary of State ; I think that suit in the California courts about the
school children should be prest as rapidly as possible. But I think in pressing
it we should openly disclaim at the outset any intention of invoking the law
in behalf of any of the Japanese excepting those who are really children.
What about this? 1

4158 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt Ms$.

Washington, December 5, 1906

To the Secretary of War; A careful study, not only of Major Blocksom’s
report, but of General Nettleton’s letter, leaves me uncertain whether or
not the officers of the three colored companies who took part in the mur-
derous riot at Brownsville are or are not blamable. I should like a thoro
investigation and report on this matter. 1

. x The official award to Roosevelt of the Nobel prize for peace by the Norwegian
Parliament was made in Christiania on December 10. At that time the American
minister announced Roosevelt’s intention of using the $40,000 to establish at Washing-
ton a committee for industrial peace

x The constitutionality of the segregation of Japanese students m California (see No
4120), a question then before the courts, was never settled. The test suit was aban-
doned after the negotiation of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” Roosevelt’s concern
for the distinction between adults and children is significant because the segregation
order was produced m part by the fear that Japanese adults, who sometimes attended
primary school, would practice there the vices to which some assumed they were
addicted. Roosevelt, m his special message of December 18, stated that he had no
objection to barrmg over-age Japanese from the schools

1 Major Augustus P. Blocksom of the Inspector General’s office had made the first
official investigation of the Brownsville affair, submitting his report on August 29,
1906. Alfred B. Nettleton, a former Union general, newspaper publisher, and
financier, had sent his personal, unofficial account of the episode to Taft m a private
letter of November 27, 1906 Both Blocksom and Nettleton sustained Garlmgton’s
report. Further investigations and reports demonstrated no blame on the part of the
troops’ officers.

521

4159 • T< > LESLIE MORTIER SHAW

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, December 7, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: I have just read thru the resum6 of the Treasury
operations during the five years that you have been Secretary. 1 I am so im-
prest by this plain recital of what has been accomplished by you that I take
this opportunity of telling you so; and at the same time of expressing my
very profound appreciation of your services. People tend to forget year by
year that the Secretary of the Treasury stands between them and business
disaster. This report of yours shows how every year some crisis has occurred
which might have the most serious effects if it had not been met just as you
have met it. It is a remarkable showing, and I congratulate you upon it Sin-
cerely yours

4160 * TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR RoOSCVelt MSS .

Washington, December 7, 1906

Dear Ted: That was a bully letter of Billy Appleton’s. He said the very
things that ought to have been said, and he said them in such a nice way. I
was a little surprised at his saying that the Pore, was the best club in college.
But of course it is, and therefore any man in it ought to be mighty careful
to remove from it the taint of snobbishness. Don’t lose touch with the rest
of your classmates. Go around to the Sphinx, of course, and keep in touch
with the Yard generally just so far as you can. It is a mighty satisfactory
thing to be in the Pore.; for the very reason that now you can go about and
be nice and natural with fellows and not be suspected of wanting anything,
or of having interested motives — because you have got everything, and
that is all there is about it. Be extra careful not to let people think that you
are in any way puffed up or changed. Incidentally, of course, for Heaven’s
sake don’t neglect your studies; and I earnestly hope you will now take up
some of the outside work m Cambndgeport or elsewhere that you men-
tioned to me that you might go into on Sundays or on some evenings. Of
course, don’t lose associations with the rest of your class.

Before you leave I have somehow got to get on to one Pore, dinner. Don’t
forget to tell me when you are to be taken in.

I know that Kipling poem well, and it has always been one of my favor-
ites. How would Panama do in summer and Alaska in winter? Your loving
; father

1 Shaw reviewed the financial operations of the Treasury for the period 1902-1906
m pages 36-40 of his annual report, see House Docmient , 59 Cong., 2 sess., no. 9.
For a discussion of the significance of those operations, see No 2639, note 3

522

41 6 1 * TO EUGENE HALE

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, December 7, 1906

My dear Senator Hale : There has of course been a good deal of disappoint-
ment exprest by some of our more radical naval advocates that I only favored
one ship a year, and the effort has been made to show that this meant that
this year I would be content with the ship authorized last year, and that
you had so exprest yourself. I told them that of course I did not mean any
such thing and that I was absolutely certain that you did not mean it either;
that I had spoken of this with you at length, and had, with I believed your
approval, limited myself to asking one ship a year — which of course did
not mean one ship every two years, as would be the case if this year we sim-
ply contented ourselves with the ship provided for last year. Am I correct?
Of course my desire is for that ship and another. 1 Sincerely yours

4162 ' TO THEODORE PERRY SHONTS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 10, 1906

My dear Mr. Shonts: Will you look over the enclosed^ 1 And now, my dear
fellow, a word to both you and Stevens in this matter. Both of you are big,
strong, forceful men who do not spare yourself and do not spare others.
Your great aim is to get the work done quickly. You have a natural tendency
to impatience with complaints, and a natural tendency when a complaint is
made to hunt for reasons to show why it is not justified. I want you in look-
ing at these complaints in connection with what is really Government em-
ployment, to look into them, not with the desire of finding a justification for
anything we may have done, but simply to see whether or not there is some
cause for complaint, even tho the complaint is grossly exaggerated, and then
to provide a remedy. Sincerely yours

4163 • to james Wilson Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, December 10, 1906

My dear Secretary Wilson: This is to introduce to you Miss Kellor. 1 She
may present this note in person, or may simply send it to you together with

x This was the first of Roosevelt’s many letters to Hale and Foss during the second
session of the 59th Congress urging the appropriation of funds for the construction
of two battleships of the Dread?iought type

1 The enclosures were statements from William H. Needham and other machinists
repeating earlier protests about working conditions on the Isthmus, see No. 4146.

1 Frances Alice Kellor, New York City sociologist, fellow, College Settlement
Association, 1902-1904, later member of various state and national commissions con-
cerned with unemployment, immigration, naturalization, and race problems, in 1912
and 1916 an active Progressive, author of Experimental Sociology (1901), Out of
Work (1904), Education of Women by Athletics (1909).

523

certain communications which she wishes drawn to your attention. Miss
Kellor has been very kind in giving me assistance and advice in connection
with our immigration laws, and is continuing to do so. Miss Kellor from
time to time thru her agents obtains special reports on conditions affecting
various Departments of the Government. I shall give her a similar letter to
this to each head of a Department. Meanwhile, may I ask you carefully to
consider the reports she furnishes to you, and to report to me the results of
your investigation and action thereon? Sincerely yours

4164 • to j. lovxand Roosevelt Mss

Telegram Washington, December 10, 1906

I am profoundly moved and touched by the signal honor shown me thru
your body in conferring upon me the Nobel peace prize. There is no gift I
could appreciate more; and I wish it were in my power fully to express my
gratitude. I thank you for myself, and I thank you on behalf of the United
States; for what I did I was able to accomplish only as the representative of
the Nation of which for the time being I am President. After much thought
I have concluded that the best and most fitting way to apply the amount of
the prize is by using it as a foundation to establish at Washington a perma-
nent Industrial Peace Committee. The object will be to strive for better and
more equitable relations among my countrymen who are engaged, whether
as capitalists or wageworkers, in industrial and agricultural pursuits. This
will carry out the purpose of the founder of the prize, for in modern life it
is as important to work for the cause of just and righteous peace in the in-
dustrial world as in the world of nations. I again express to you the assurance
of my deep and lasting gratitude and appreciation. 1

4165 • TO MATTHEW CALBRAITH BUTLER Roosevelt MsS.

Washington, December 12, 1906

My dear Senator : 1 1 want to thank you heartily for your kind commenda-
tion of my message. It is indeed praise from Sir Hubert!

I am having just as much trouble with my northern friends over this 25th
Infantry matter as I ever had with my southern friends over the southern
situation. 2

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

‘This cable was sent to J. Lovland, Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs, chair-
man of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament

‘Matthew Calbraith Butler, Confederate general, Democratic senator from South
Carolina, 1877-1895, defeated for re-election by Ben Tillman, major general dunng
the war with Spam.

'The trouble had reached the Senate, where Foraker, from the first day of the
session, had attacked Roosevelt’s order discharging the colored troops. The senator’s

524

4 1 66 * TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, December 13, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: The more I have thought over the matter the more
convinced I am that we need radical action about the public lands. The ille-
gal fencing represents the temporary withdrawal of land from the public,
sometimes to the disadvantage and sometimes rather to the advantage of the
public, but does not represent any permanent theft of it; altho of course it
must be stopt. The obtaining of land under false pretenses, nominally by
settlers, but really by absentee owners, corporate or others, represents, how-
ever, real theft; that is, the permanent taking possession of the land by people
who are not entitled to it. In order to reach the illegal fencing I shall notify
Congress that they must pass laws which will enable the Government to
handle the public range as it is now handled in the forest reserves, and that
otherwise I shall make it my purpose to see that the illegal fencing is put an
end to, whether it is harmful or not In order to reach the fraud m the shape *
of theft of the public land, I believe it is necessary to have actual examina-
tion on the ground, by one of our officers, of each patent before granting it.

I accordingly direct that this be hereafter done. I shall notify Congress of
this order and ask them for a number of additional land agents, stating that
unless this increase is granted either there will be great delay and damage to
bona fide settlers, or else a continuance of the fraud. 1

As for the coal lands, I shall also ask again that we be given power to
supervise and control their management and use. The present laws put a
premium upon fraud because they forbid individuals and corporations from
securing a sufficient quantity of land to warrant their going into the coal
mining business, and yet render it easy for them to secure the extra quantity
by evasion of the law. I shall call the attention of Congress to this fact. 2 The
Chancellor of a certain university has been to me to point out the great dam-
age to the university resulting from the present laws, which render it impos-
sible, or well-nigh impossible, to procure the coal in workable quantities
without resorting to practices from which men of a high standard of mteg-

resolution directing Taft to furnish full information on the Brownsville case had
passed December 6. Thereafter Foraker returned regularly to the issue, which re-
mained for months the subject of successive inconclusive investigations. Honestly
indignant at what seemed to him an unjust order based on insufficient and spurious
information, Foraker considered Brownsville an American Dreyfus case. His zeal
on behalf of the troops, however, derived also from his ambition to wm the
Republican Presidential nomination. In this quest he welcomed any chance to dis-
credit Roosevelt and Taft.

Roosevelt incorporated all these suggestions m his special message to Congress of
February 13, 1907. Besides additional appropriations to enlarge the land office, he
requested specifically local government control of pasture lands with legislation to
allow “reasonable and necessary fencing” always with “care for the interests of the
homesteader and the small stockman”

3 See No. 3967.

525

rity revolt, while they are comparatively easily carried on with impunity by
men with a less high standard of integrity. I of course know nothing about
the merits of the claim of this university. Sincerely yours

4167 • TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MSS.

. Private — purely! Washington, December 14, 1906

Dear Uncle Joe: This is written to you as a Nestor in the Republican party
and one of the few big men who can still speak at first hand of Lincoln. The
Republican Club of New York, which is really a mighty big and good or-
ganization, particularly wants you as the main speaker at its Lincoln Birthday
banquet this year — I spoke there two years .ago myself, which you must
not hold against the Club for it could not help itself! Now, I feel that you
would do real good to go there and speak. As I am not writing to Mrs. Storer,
I will add that I think arrangements can be made to have you speak after
you have ceased to be able to walk that crack 1 Please go. Faithfully yours

4168 • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK RoOSevelt MSS.

Washington, December 15, 1906

My dear Mr. Secretary: My attention was to withdraw the coal lands from
coal entry merely. It was my understanding that this was the effect of my
order, for my subsequent directions were perfectly explicit and clear to the
effect that we should only interfere with coal entries, my directions being
given after Mr. Pmchot returned from the West and I had gone over the
subject at length with him as well as with Mr. Walcott. It appears, however,
that thru a misunderstanding somewhere in the Department the order has
been issued in such shape as to forbid all homestead and other entries; which
is most inadvisable. Will you please have all the orders commencing July 2 6,
190 6, at once corrected so as to read in accordance with my intentions, that
is, to withdraw the lands from coal entry merely, those covering Alaska as
well as the other States and Territories?

Please issue this order on Monday morning and have it telegraphed out
to the various land offices concerned. Sincerely yours

4169 • TO EDWARD HENRY HARRIMAN Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Washington, December 15, 1906

Referring to your telegram of December 13 , 1 assume you are planning to
continue work immediately on closing break in Colorado river . 1 1 should be
fully informed as to how far you intend to proceed in the matter.

1 The break m the Colorado River which occurred December 7 on Mexican terri-
tory just south of Yuma, Arizona, threatened to inundate California’s Imperial Val-
ley. In the fall of 1904 the California Development Company, a highly speculative

526

4170 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, December 1 6, 1906

Dear Mr. Justice: That is an awfully nice letter of yours, and Mrs. Roosevelt
liked it as much as I did. I need hardly tell you, my dear fellow, how much
your presence m the Cabinet has meant to me. Your ability in each Depart-
ment that you have handled, your ability m addition as a Cabinet Minister in
the broadest sense, your courage and honesty and your unflinching loyalty,
have made you one of the three or four men with whom I have been in
closest touch and on whom I have leaned most thruout the time of our
service together. I fully agree with what your colleague Day said to me last
night: “From the very moment of getting on the bench Moody will be a
tower of strength.”

With all good wishes, Faithfully yours

4171 * TO JAMES BRANDER MATTHEWS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 16, 1906

Dear Brander: I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling m, and it
was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was
beaten. Do you know I think that the one word as to which I thought the
new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else
for our discomfiture^ But I am mighty glad I did the thing anyhow. In my
own correspondence I shall continue using the new spelling. Faithfully yours

4172 * TO EDWARD GREY Roosevelt MSS .

Private Washington, December 18, 1906

My dear Sir Edward: I thank you for your very satisfactory letter, which
told me just what I wisht to know. I quite understand about Lee; and I am
sure you will give us a good man. By the way, I was told that Rennell Rodd
had been offered the place and refused. If this is so, do tell him that Mrs.

land and water selling venture, had constiucted an irrigation cutoff without proper
reinforcements or controlling devices This “criminal negligence” in a short time
had diverted the mam flow of the Colorado River from its regular course into
Imperial Valley. As its financial and engineering resources were wholly inadequate
to meet the crisis, the Development Company had turned to the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company for aid. The railroad first provided only financial aid, but
finally, m April 1906, after repeated failures to stop the flood, took complete charge
of the situation By November 1906 the dam closing the break was completed at an
estimated cost of $1,500,000, only to collapse before a flash flood four weeks later
Senate Document, 59 Cong, 2 sess., no 212 has all the pertinent documents including
the Roosevelt-Harnman correspondence Kennan, Harrtman, vol. II, ch. xxui-xxiv,
provides the background

Roosevelt and I know him as a poet but did not know him as a diplomatist;
and we should have welcomed him with enthusiasm , 1

I feel that your good relations with France are an excellent thing from
every standpoint. As to Japan, I am not in the least surprised that you can-
not give me a forecast of her policy. I don’t think anyone could. I have no
question myself that Russia keeps steadily m mind her intention to try an-
other throw with Japan for supremacy in easternmost Asia. If there should
be a disruption of Russia from within of course Japan would have nothing
further to fear, but if Russia remains a united empire, then I believe Japan
will need to keep herself formidable unless she expects to be overwhelmed
in Manchuria. I am inclined to think that Japan knows this and that this is
one of the reasons which have actuated her in continuing to prepare for war
as steadily and vigorously since the close of her contest with Russia as during
the ten years previous. But it is also possible that she has designs upon some
other power — Germany or America, for instance; and again it is quite possi-
ble she has no designs on any power, but is simply bent upon achieving and
maintaining a commanding position in the Western Pacific and East Asia
There will be keen industrial competition between Japan and ourselves, as
well as between Japan and various European powers, including yourselves, in
the Pacific. It is possible that Japan hopes ultimately to seize the Philippines;
altho I should doubt her having any present intention of doing so, and the
Filipinos, tho they do not like us, would probably feel a much more lively
horror of coming into the clutches of the Japanese. The immediate source of
danger to the relations between us and Japan arises from the labor question,
which is itself only one phase of the race question. Japanese “gentlemen”
can get on perfectly well with American, European or Australian “gentle-
men” — and I use the word “gentlemen” in an elastic sense as including all
people of cultivation and self-restraint. But most American and Australian
workingmen, and I believe Canadian workingmen, will object m the most
emphatic way to Japanese laborers coming among them in any number I
think they are right in so objecting. If the influence of Japanese laborers to
the United States goes on it is certain to be stopt by law within a few years,
and very possibly the stoppage will be accomplished by acts of international
bad breeding which will make trouble. On the other hand, the Japs would
object at least as much to any great number of foreigners coming into their
territory and exercising industrial pressure as competitors with their people.

1 James Rennell Rodd, later first Baron Rodd, had already had as much experience
in diplomacy as m poetry. Since 1883 he had served round the world as a repre-
sentative of His Majesty’s government. In between times he was, wrote Oscar Wilde,
one of “the many young men m England who are seeking along with me to con-
tinue and to perfect the English Renaissance ” Towards the achievement of this
perfection he contributed a steady flow of verse — “Feda,” “The Violet Crown,”
“The Unknown Madonna,” and the like In the third decade of this century he had
a place on many international organizations including the League of Nations His
“tastes,” he wrote, were “catholic, but especially fencing.”

528

If it is possible I shall try to arrange some agreement, either by treaty or
otherwise, by which both Japan and the United States shall agree to keep
out one another’s laborers. I think such an agreement is the only way by
which permanently to remove what as far as I can see is the only radical cause
of friction between the two countries. The Japanese may be reluctant to
enter into such an agreement. If so, there is trouble ahead, altho probably not
very serious trouble in my time. We have a formidable navy, as compared with
Japan not only in material but in personnel; but in the event of war we
should be operating far from our base. I need hardly say I shall do everything
that can honorably be done to preserve peace.

I was much amused about what you said as to your people being spoiling
for a fight before the Boer war, and now no longer desiring one. It precisely
parallels our attitude before and since the Spanish war. Moreover, we, too,
as you say of your people, are at bottom well disposed in spite of the
presence of too many sentimentalists, and I think there is a real friendly
feeling among our people toward yours. You are quite right m saying that
it is not Anglo-Saxon race feeling. I am not an Anglo-Saxon myself, for
instance. We are making a new race, a new type, m this country — a type
with good and with bad characteristics, of course. But we and you have a
common language, essentially a common culture, and as you so well say,
much the same kind of religious feeling; and above all, the same kind of way
of looking at the great matters that count most in securing just and free
government. Moreover, we have much the same limitations, governmentally
and otherwise 1 I have the keenest sympathy with your difficulties when you
come to handle matters in which your colonies take a violent and wholly
nonimperial interest; for w T e of course have exactly the same experience
when, as in this Japanese matter, the question is one with which a particular
State regards itself as peculiarly concerned I am sure your Government and
ours are approaching the Newfoundland and similar matters in exactly the
same spirit, and I believe we shall be able, by the exercise of tact and patience
and forbearance, to come to an accommodation

With regard and good wishes, believe me, Sincerely yours

4173 • TO GEORGE EDMUND FOSS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, December 19, 1906

My dear Mr. Foss: I don’t want this country to lead the race for big ships,
but it seems to me well-nigh criminal for us to fall behind. I think the ship
provided for last year and the ship to be provided for this year, two in all,
should be at least eighteen thousand tons apiece. Japan’s new battleship, the
Satsuma , is of this size, which is the Dreadnought size. I do not think we can
afford to take any chances with our navy. Faithfully yours

4174 ■ T0 SETH tow

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, December 20, 1906

Bear Seth: I have your letter of the 1 8th instant. That idea has already been
suggested to me by Straus and John Mitchell. I have told Straus to go ahead
and see if he can work out anything by which the Nobel prize foundation
can be used as something on which the Civic Federation can be grafted, or
at least can be used to work harmoniously with it. It would not be possible,
in my judgment, to take a gift of this kind, which is made by me in a semi-
official character, and graft it on a private enterprise. The graft must be made
the other way. You understand that neither my name nor Nobel’s will be
used in connection with the gift; but I do not feel that I ought to let it be
swallowed up in any private movement.

Can’t you come on here soon and discuss the subject with Straus and my-
self? Or would you prefer to let Straus, Mitchell and the rest try to formulate
a plan, and then come on and discuss it with me 5 Faithfully yours

4175 • TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER Roosevelt MSS.

Private Washington, December 20, 1906

My dear President Wheeler: That is a very nice letter of yours and a very
good article. I entirely agree with what you say. I am most anxious to bring
about a peaceful understanding with Japan by which each country shall bar
out the laborers of the other. I want to do this in a way which will leave
Japan our friend instead of an enemy eager and perhaps able to do us fright-
ful damage whenever the opportunity arises. The conduct of the San Fran-
ciscans in barring the Japanese children from the schools has a permanent
consequence in just one way, namely, by inciting great resentment in Japan
and making it far more difficult for me to secure an agreement for keeping
out Japanese laborers.

With all good wishes for the holiday season for all your family, believe
me, Sincerely yours

4176 ■ TO EDWARD HENRY HARRIMAN Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Washington, December 20, 1906

Replying yours nineteenth Reclamation Service cannot enter upon work
without authority of Congress and suitable convention with Mexico. 1 Con-
gress adjourns today for holidays, impossible to secure action at present. It
is incumbent upon you to close break again Question of future permanent
maintenance can then be taken up Reclamation Service engineers available
for consultation. This is all the aid that there is in the power of the Govern-

1 Harnman had telegraphed asking the government to assume the responsibility and
the cost of repairing the Colorado River break.

530

ment to render and it seems to me clear that it is the imperative duty of the
California Development Company to close this break at once. The danger is
ultimately due only to the action of that company m the past m making
heading completed in October nineteen four in Mexican territory. The
present crisis can at this moment only be met by the action of the Company
which is ultimately responsible for it, and that action should be taken with-
out an hour’s delay. Thru the Department of State I am endeavoring to
secure such action by the Mexican Government as will enable Congress in
its turn to act But at present Congress can do nothing without such action
by the Mexican Government. This is a matter of such vital importance that I
wish to repeat that there is not the slightest excuse for the California Devel-
opment Company waiting an hour for the action of the Government. It is
their duty to meet the present danger immediately and then this Government
will take up with them as it has already taken up with Mexico the question
of providing in permanent shape against the recurrence of the danger.

4177 * TO CHARLES DOOLITTLE WALCOTT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 20, 1906

My dear Mr. Walcott: The enclosed telegram from Mr. Harriman is very
satisfactory. 1 In view of it, and of the Secretary of State’s declaration that
the Mexican Government has very kindly given us what is in effect a license
to act, please proceed at once, after whatever discussion with Mr. Harriman
may be necessary, to prepare information for me on which I can base recom-
mendations to Congress as soon as that body reassembles looking to the
permanent prevention of any repetition of the disaster, and to an equitable
adjustment of the burden therefor Sincerely yours

4178 • TO JOHN ST. LOE STRACHEY Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, December 21, 1906

My dear Strachey: Naturally your letter pleases me much. Of course I agree
with all that you say about the rifle practice

As for the Storer matter 1 to which you so kindly allude, my feeling is

1 Harriman had replied to Roosevelt’s telegram (No. 4176) by saying that his engi-
neers had been ordered to begin repairing the Colorado River break at once. The
break was finally closed on February 10, 1907. In the meantime Roosevelt had sent
a special message to Congress asking for legislation to bring the entire Imperial Val-
ley lrngation system under the reclamation service. Congress failed to act on this
recommendation.

1 Bellamy Storer with disgraceful indiscretion had released a selection of his and his
wife’s correspondence with Roosevelt The letters he excerpted, in large part those
later published in Maria Storer’s Roosevelt, the Child, told the Storer version of the
disruption of the Storer-Roosevelt friendship. They were intended to demonstrate
the President’s ingratitude and religious prejudice. When anti-Admmistration news-
papers seized on the issue, Roosevelt presented his rebuttal m a public letter to Root

53 1

purely one of shame and indignation on behalf of my country that an ex-
Ambassador should show what a vile creature he is and should by just so
much hurt the country which he once represented. As regards my own
letters which he published I did not care a rap, for there was nothing in them
which did not represent what I regard as sound policy.

I was much interested in the Spectator editorial on my message, and of
course much pleased.

In the California matter I had a very difficult task. Some day or other
it is possible your Government will be brought face to face with the same
question. Australia will not have the Japanese, and British Columbia is tend-
ing to feel the same way. I had two especial purposes in my special message
on the subject . 2 In the first place I wanted to let not only the Californians but
the rest of my countrymen know that no political considerations would
interfere for a moment with my using the armed forces of the country to
protect the Japanese if they were molested m their persons and property. In
the next place I wanted to show all possible consideration for the Japanese,
so as to soothe their wounded feelings, and if possible get them into a frame
of mind in consequence of which we may be able to get some mutual agree-
ment between Japan and the United States reciprocally to keep out the
laborers of each country from the other. Under our treaty with Japan we
have specifically reserved the right to exclude Japanese laborers; but to do
it would mean to arouse very bitter feelings in Japan, unless I can have it
done on Japan’s initiative, so to speak. That it must be done, I am sure. I had
hoped that we could do it only in the course of a general immigration re-
striction bill, by which we could keep out all people who have difficulty in
assimilating with our own, leaving the Government agents such power in
exercising the right as would enable us to avoid giving offense to any one
nation. But it is evident that I can get no such bill, and I have to recognize
facts — one fact being governmental conditions as they actually exist in a
democracy, and the other being, what so many sentimentalists tend to forget,
the great fact of difference of race. If I can get an agreement by which
Japanese business and professional men, travelers, students, and the like, can
come in and be treated precisely like Europeans, while on the other hand

which emphasized those points so often repeated m his private correspondence. On
the merits of the case the friends and the enemies of Roosevelt have never been able
to agree, but whatever the strength of Storer’s position, he weakened it by choosing
the public as his forum

a In his message to Congress of December 18, transmitting Metcalf’s report on anti-
Japanese agitation m California, Roosevelt wrote’ “I authorized and directed Secre-
tary Metcalf to state that if there was failure to protect persons and property, then
the entire power of the federal government within the limits of the Constitution
would be used promptly and vigorously to enforce the observance of our treaty
. . [which] guaranteed to Japanese residents . . full and perfect protection
for their persons and property, and to this end everything in my power would be
done, and all the forces of the United States, both civil and military, .... would
be employed . . . .”

532

American workmen are kept out of the Japanese possessions and the Japanese
kept out of American possessions, it will remove what is a growing, and
probably otherwise a permanent, cause of irritation Moreover, the Japanese
are coming in in increasing numbers on the western coast, and if they began
to come by the hundred thousand it would be a very, very bad thing indeed,
and it would then be too late to have a peaceful, or at least a non-irritating,
solution.

Oh, how thoroly I agree with you in your indignation over the people
who on the one hand shriek against taking the steps necessary to preserve the
country from the aggression of a strong power, and on the other hand show
a reckless willingness to embark on a course of policy which may at any
moment lead to war. Bryan admirably illustrates both tendencies. 3 Sincerely
yours

4179 ' TO JOHN CARTER ROSE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, December 21, 1906

Dear Rose. I am glad you liked both messages. That is a very interesting
editorial from the Times . Of course I was proud of the election of the Re-
publican Congress. I do wish, however, that the same men who get elected
on the issue of standing by me would not at once turn and try to thwart me.
But this is mere folly on my part, for it is a wish to escape the lot of every
President who has tried to accomplish anything; and worse folly than to
grumble about one’s tools, when they are the only tools at hand, it would be
difficult to imagine. Sincerely yours

4180 * TO PHILIP RATHELL STEWART Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, December 22, 1906

Dear Phil: I very much want you to take the position of Commissioner of
the General Land Office here. 1 * I have been very much discontented with

8 Commenting on Roosevelt’s annual message to Congress, Bryan had expressed his
“disappointment at the war-like tone .... where he [Roosevelt] discusses the army
and navy.” “Shame upon the chief executive,” Bryan exclaimed, “that he should
place an instrument of brute force above the nation’s sense of justice as a guarantee
of peace.”

In the same statement Bryan, while praising Roosevelt’s request for “legislation
which will enable Congress to protect the treaty rights of foreigners,” warned that
any proposals of this type “must be carefully scrutinized to be sure that they do not
deny to the various states the right to protect themselves and their people in matters
purely local ” This last phrase the California press interpreted, as Bryan doubtless
intended it should, as a defense, on constitutional grounds, of the San Francisco
school order

1 Roosevelt had previously offered this position to John C. Greenway, who had
declined. Stewart also declined. In January, on Garfield’s recommendation, the Presi-
dent approached Richard Achilles Ballinger, reform mayor of Seattle, 1904-1906.

Ballinger first added his to the earlier decimations, but later changed his mind and

accepted the post He resigned in March 1908

533

the way the Interior Department has gone. Secretary Hitchcock is a brave
and honest man, but the Department has utterly gone to pieces and I am at
my wits’ end to know who is efficient and who inefficient, who straight and
who crooked in it. I shall put Jim Garfield in as Secretary of the Interior,
and I shall make a pretty clean sweep of most of the people under him — al-
ways excepting, of course, men like Warner in the Pension Office, and Leupp
in the Indian Office, who are two of the ablest and best men in the whole
public service. Garfield is the salt of the earth. He is an idealist who yet has
great practical ability. I want to get at the head of the Land Office a man
just as good, and therefore I want you. Gifford Pinchot will be one of your
co-workers. In fact, all of the men around you and associated with you will
be of just that stamp.

Now I earnestly hope that you can accept. If you are in doubt, then
come on at once to Washington before refusing and talk over the whole mat-
ter with me. I very firmly believe, my dear fellow, that it is your clear duty
to accept, for you can render an invaluable service to all our people. Faith-
fully yours

4181 • to brooks adams Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, December 22, 1906

Dear Brooks: That is a nice letter of yours. I doubt if the community was
with me in the matter of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, (and I didn’t very
much care!) but I think the attempted murder of one of their officers by
one of the discharged soldiers, as reported today, will show the hideous
wrong done by this agitation. I believe you are absolutely right in saying
that Foraker has been representing Wall Street in attacking me on this issue.
Sincerely yours

4182 * TO ALBERT LENOIR KEY Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 1, 1907

My dear Captain Key: I am concerned at what seems to me an unsympathetic
and even an unfriendly attitude often adopted by the line officers toward
the staff, and notably toward the medical service, and I find that great feel-
ing has been aroused by the action of the Personnel Board in proposing a
substantial increase in the time before which it is possible for a newly com-
missioned medical man to become a lieutenant. The circumstances of the
medical corps are not analogous to those of the line. There is not so much
need of an increase of officers in the higher ranks as there is of making the
position attractive for the young men who, at an age greatly in advance of
the age of naval cadets, and with a far more arduous training, enter the
service as surgeons. We are now seventy short in our quota, and while there
are some inefficient elderly surgeons, the young ones are on the whole excel-

534

lent and we should do everything we can to get more of them. As you
know, I submitted my message on the personnel practically as the board
wisht it. 1 1 will do all in my power for the line officers of the navy; but it is
a real and grave harm to the navy to have dissensions in the ranks, and above
all to have ill feeling and backbiting and effort to do mutual injustice obtain,
as for instance, between the line and medical corps. I would like very much
to get at the reasons which prompted the Personnel Board to make the
recommendations they did as regards the doctors. Sincerely yours

4183 • to paul morton Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 2, 1907

My dear Paul : I have your letter of the 31st ultimo. Ripley is a good fellow,
but he is as completely in error in this matter as any human being could be. 1
So far from my having excited the clamor of which Mr. Ripley complains,
he and those like him owe the fact that they have not already had to suffer
drastic action to the further fact that I have furnished a safety-valve for the
popular unrest and indignation. Mr. Ripley and those who think like him
believe in what is literally the expedient of sitting on the safety-valve —
never permanently a safe operation. As for my putting a stop to the agitation
by speaking the right word at the proper time (as when I spoke thru Root
in his speech at Utica last fall), I shall never for one moment hesitate to speak
the right word; but the trouble with Mr. Ripley, good fellow tho he is, and
with those who think like him, is that they do not want the abuses cut out,
or else do not want them cut out save on conditions which render it impos-
sible that the act should be performed. In Mr. Ripley’s case I am informed
that his trouble at the moment comes from the prosecution of the Standard
Oil Corporation; and surely there never was a prosecution which it was

1 Neither Roosevelt’s suggestions nor the Personnel Board’s recommendations were
acted upon by Congress; see No 4213.

1 Edward Payson Ripley, president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, was one
of the many financiers, particularly railroad executives, who were at this time talk-
ing themselves into panic These men felt that by his policies Roosevelt had opened
Pandora’s box “A spirit of unrest, of discontent, of social jealousy and hatred has
been engendered among the people . . by the demagogic acts and utterances of
those high m political authority, and chiefly by the mischievous conduct of the
President of the United States,” the New York Sun complained on December 31,
1906 “The railroads . . and industrial concerns as well are subjected to all sorts
of Government harassments looking forward to a reduction of their earning power
The logical end of such proceedings if continued is not pleasant to contemplate”
In the first months of 1907 the investigation of the Harriman lines, the increase^ of
state laws regulating railroad rates and practices, talk of strikes, and the growing
sentiments for government rate-makmg on the basis of a physical valuation of the
railroads persuaded the financial community that investments were threatened by
the growing government interest and action. The market, particularly the railioads,
responded to this fear. As rails declined Roosevelt gave continual attention to ap-
peals from Wall Street that he reassure the business world Only m the manner of
this letter to Morton, however, did the President comply.

535

wiser to undertake if the law warranted it. I am deeply convinced that unless
we want to see very violent convulsions in this country, and the certainty
of ultimate adoption of State ownership and of very drastic measures against
corporations, there must be a steady perseverance in the policy of control
over corporations by the Government which I have advocated.

To come down to definite facts, what does Mr. Ripley mean when he
speaks of my assault on the railroads* You yourself told me that you believed
that this last bill was a benefit to them, and that they all agreed that the
former bills were benefits to them, bitterly tho they opposed them at
the beginning, and the courts have decided in the majority of cases that the
suits we have undertaken were properly taken. What specific act does Mr
Ripley complain of?

It is stated publicly that Messrs. Hill and Harriman are about to issue
some hundreds of millions of additional stock. I have been asked to have the
Department of Justice interfere to prevent it. We have not the power. I wish
we had. If Mr. Ripley would persuade the railroad men who possess great
fortunes, who have not the slightest excuse of need as a justification for doing
acts that are against the interests of the public, from the commission of such
acts, he would go very much farther than I could possibly go in removing the
feeling of the American people against the big financiers.

It was delightful to see dear Pauline yesterday.

Wishing you and yours many happy new years, believe me, Sincerely
yours

4184 * TO LYMAN ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 3, 1907

Dear Dr. Abbott : I don’t write you on all the points upon which we agree,
so don’t mind my occasionally sending you a note on some others.

First, interference in behalf of the Armenians. The petition of you and
others has been handed to me by Bishop Satterlee. Whether or not I can do
anything I don’t know. I have the horror of the former frontier for the man
who draws and doesn’t shoot. I am all the time being asked to interfere for
the Jews in Russia, the Armenians in Turkey, the natives of the Congo Free
State. Personally, I put righteousness above peace, and should be entirely satis-
fied to head a crusade for the Armenians. But you know as well as I do that it
would be simple nonsense to start such a crusade unless the country were
prepared to back it up, and the country has not the remotest intention of
fighting on such an issue. It therefore becomes a question of how far it is
either effective or dignified to go in words which can’t be backed up in
deeds.

Second. In the Japanese matter the crux is the bringing in of the Japanese
laboring men. Whether we like it or not, I think we have to face the fact that
the people of the Pacific slope, with the warm approval of the labor men

536

thruout our whole country, will become steadily more and more hostile to
the Japanese if their laborers come here, and I am doing my best to bring
about an agreement with Japan by which the laborers of each country shall be
kept out of the other country. I want to make things so pleasant for Japan, if
I possibly can, that with entire self-respect they can propose or assent to
such a proposition. Of course I may fail Personally, my view is that it does
no possible good to deprive those who are here of the franchise. On the
contrary I think that we should studiously give the franchise and school
facilities to, and in other ways treat as well as possible, all the Japanese that
come, but keep out all the laboring class . 1 I think that thereby we would
avoid injuring Japanese self-respect and keep the relations of the two coun-
tries good, and would avoid a certainty of race trouble. I have not the
slightest sympathy for big men who want to bring in cheap labor, whether
Japanese, Chinese or any other. We cannot afford to regard any immigrant
as a laborer; we must regard him as a citizen.

Third, Mormons. I do not know what kind of a man Mr. McLain W.
Davis is . 2 If he is a crook or a sentimental fool, then do not show him this
letter. If he is a reasonable man, then for his own private information you can
show it as far as Mormonism is concerned. I am not well acquainted with the
situation in Utah. Mr. Davis says the Mormon church claims me as a friend
of the Mormons. The assertion is true in so far as I object to treating a
Mormon badly, and false m so far as it implies that I improperly favor him, or
do more than insist upon his obeying the law, and, in short, receiving exactly
the treatment that anyone else does, and Mr. Davis cannot show an instance
of any kind or sort where I have ever deviated from this policy. I do not
believe that a case has been made out against Smoot, and I have yet to find
anyone whose opinion I respected who thought that a case had been made
out against him. In Idaho I do know the facts, however, and Mr. Davis
either does not know them, or knowing them, misrepresents them in what
he says. The great battle was not about Senator Dubois and the Mormons
Senator Dubois has favored the Mormons in the past when it helped him, and
has been against them recently because he thought he could gam by being
so. The great fight was for civilization, because it was for the re-election of
Governor Gooding, whom it was sought to beat in the interest of the thugs
and dynamiters who have masqueraded as the Western Federation of Miners
and who compassed the death of ex-Governor Steunenberg, as well as of
scores of other men. Mr. Davis had better look at the election returns. He
will find that Dubois was beaten hands down, that the Republicans had no

x The Japanese government agreed, but then and later the dominant sentiment of
the Pacific Coast prevented the passage of any law permitting naturalization of Jap-
anese.

3 McLain W. Davis had contributed an article, “Mormonism — Some of Its Realities,”
to the December 29, 1906, issue of the Outlook This hyperbolic attack on the Mor-
mon religion and the Mormons’ political activities in Utah and Idaho implied that
Roosevelt and the Republican party had assisted an un-Christian regime.

537

difficulty in electing their Legislature or their Congressman; that the sole
fight was over Gooding, and that the sole hope of the Democrats of beating
Gooding was by inflaming the labor people against him because of his fear-
lessness in upholding the law against murder, even in the teeth of a most
powerful and dangerous organization.

As I say, I know pretty much all about the Mormon problem in Idaho.
Dubois made charges about Mormon postmasters which caused us not only
to investigate the charges, which proved to be practically without any
foundation whatever, but to investigate the whole Mormon business. We
found that among the Mormons in Idaho polygamy was as sporadic as, for
instance, bigamy was among the Gentiles.

In the Outlook, succeeding Davis’, is an article by Irving. 3 In the con-
cluding paragraph of this article there is an admirable phrase as to the effect
of persecution and denunciation upon the average decent Mormon. In Idaho
the Mormons were well on their way to being absorbed, simply as an aber-
rant sect, no more different from Christians than the Jews, when this foolish
and wicked persecution was started three or four years ago. It was wicked
because it was entered into almost purely for political motives. It was foolish
because it was utterly ineffective save for purposes of irritation. Any student
of history knows that to persecute a sect by such methods as trying to turn
out an occasional postmaster who belongs to that sect, and writing articles
against them in the papers, merely irritates all its members and forces them
together. This is precisely what was done in Idaho I have recommended the
passage of an amendment giving the Federal Government control over po-
lygamy; and if my theories as to the power of the Federal Government are
ever made effective we can deal with any abuse of Mormomsm in short
order. But to carry on a wholly futile and yet exceedingly irritating move-
ment against them is both foolish and wicked.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

4185 • TO WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE Roosevelt MSS

Personal and Private Washington, January 4, 1907

My dear Foulke: First as to the MacNutt matter. 1 * The only action I ever
took that I can remember was about eighteen months ago in consequence of
what Mrs. Storer wrote to me, to Lodge and to White. I then, as you know,

8 G. A Irvmg, unlike Davis, wrote critically but dispassionately of the desirable as
well as the undesirable characteristics of the Mormons

1 The unfortunate MacNutt had incurred the dislike of Mrs Storer. After being
discharged from the American diplomatic service, he had found employment as a
diplomatic agent for the Vatican Fiom this post she attempted to have him re-

moved Roosevelt wisely refused either to give MacNutt an audience, which would
have increased his prestige in Rome, or to rehearse the details of his discharge, which

would have aided Afe Storer’s cause.

538

wrote to White and also saw Falconio 2 — this last fact had entirely skpt my
mind until you spoke of it. I told Falconio that apparently, to judge from
Mrs. Storer’s letters, the Vatican had indicated to MacNutt that he must be
received by me m order to get reinstated m the Papal service, and if this
was the case I strongly objected to being used m such manner, that there
was no possible reason why I should receive him at the White House and
that I should not do so, tho of course he would receive the same treatment
from the State Department as any one else would. I am not able to give the
exact language that I used to Falconio but the above is the purport of my
conversation with him; I said nothing about the alleged reasons for Mac-
Nutt’s being separated from our diplomatic service; nor about his character
at all. My conversation was purely on the theory that the Vatican was,
directly or indirectly, concerned with sending him here and havmg him
received by me. Now this conversation has not been made public and I see
no earthly reason why, because of it, I should make an investigation into
the circumstances of MacNutt’s transfer and removal, where I should have
to ask a number of people to refresh their memories as to acts that happened
over a dozen years ago, and where any conclusion that I reached would
merely be a private one, as to the justification or nonjustification for accusa-
tions made to me by people a dozen years ago, when I am now not very
certain even as to the people who made them. I have seen Falcomo, however,
and told him that I originally spoke to him simply on the representations of
Mrs. Storer; that events that have come to pass since made me utterly distrust
everything that Mrs. Storer might say, and that I accordingly withdrew what
I had then said as to Mr. MacNutt. But I certainly cannot say that I am will-
ing to receive MacNutt, for I am not. Falconio assured me that I had only
spoken to him on the assumption that the Vatican was sending MacNutt
hither; that he had then found out that such was not the case; that what I had
said was merely as to my not receiving MacNutt and this had no influence
whatever on the Vatican’s actions. This conversation is only for you, per-
sonally; and not to be repeated, save in substance if you think it necessary.

Now another matter. I took down with me to Pine Knot for my four
days’ Christmas week holiday your Life of Morton* and I have been so
much interested in it and so much imprest by it that I feel that I must tell
you so. What a rugged giant of a man he was 1 It seems to me that, of course
always excepting Lincoln, he stands in the very front of the civilians who did
most service during the Civil War. No Cabinet Minister and no other war
governor had a task quite as hard as his, and at least no other war governor
had a task as important. I am ashamed to say that until I read your book I had
not the full idea I should have had of the man’s greatness or of the incalcula-
ble service he rendered the country. I suppose that this was because while at
Harvard and for a year or two afterwards I moved in what might be called

2 The Most Reverend D. Falconio, apostolic delegate to the United States.

8 William D Foulke, Life of Oliver r. Morton (Indianapolis, 1899).

539

Mugwump circles, where the Nation and the Evening Post were treated as
well-nigh final authorities; until I got out into the world of men and myself
took part in the rough and tumble of the life where great deeds are actually
done. I very much wish that Rhodes in his last two volumes had not written
in the Mugwump strain. I greatly admired his first five volumes but I think
his last two volumes show a lamentable falling off. They give the real Mug-
wump view and betray the Mugwump utter lack of perspective. One may
condemn unstintedly much that was done by Grant and the stalwart republi-
cans without becoming so blind as to fail to see that it was the Southerners
themselves who really forced the Fifteenth Amendment and reconstruction
on the North, for instance, and above all without becoming so blind as to
fail to see that the Copperheads, ranging from Vallandigham up to Hendricks
and Seymour, acted so badly during the Civil War that it is the veriest folly
and iniquity to treat any subsequent action of theirs as putting them m the
same category with a man like Morton, in spite of Morton’s shortcomings
after the war. So it is with Schurz. Rhodes actually calls him an ideal Senator,
which is in itself an absurdity, but the praise of him becomes even more
absurd when compared with what he says and leaves unsaid of Morton, for
the service Morton rendered during the iron times of the Civil War make
Schurz’s whole career seem pinchbeck by contrast. But Schurz, like Sumner,
came from among the classes that write; and the people who feel superior
to others, and who also have the literary habit, are apt to persuade them-
selves and others that there really is such superiority; whereas in reality these
men are really the heroes only of the cloister and the parlor, and dwindle
to littleness m the great crises where men like Morton tower above their
fellows.

Give my love to Mrs. Foulke, Faithfully yours

4186 * TO WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 5, 1907

My dear White: The cart is before the horse. I do not distinctly remember
talking with Campbell and Scott, 1 but various members of the Kansas delega-
tion told me that you were for La Follette. (At this moment, Loeb, who is
taking the dictation, interrupts me to say that you are for La Follette just as
he is for him. In other words, as I am; that is, we are for La Follette when
he stands against certain big corporation evils, and against him when he goes
to a foolish extreme, or throws away the possible by demanding the im-
possible ) The way that you put it in your letter is just exactly the way I

1 Philip Pitt Campbell, Republican congressman from Kansas, 1903--1923, and Charles
Frederick -Scott were both, in 1907, associated with the liberal Republican faction
in their state.

540

should put it — lam not talking of the senatorial contest now, 2 in which, of
course, I shall be absolutely neutral, but of the general political situation.
Isn’t it funny to think that Norman Hapgood singled out Victor Morawetz 3
as just the man whom I ought to make Attorney General, saying so in an
editorial in which he was denouncing me as not being strong enough against
the trusts* La Follette often does real good m the Senate, and I like him a
great deal better this year than last. I became utterly out of patience with his
attitude toward the rate bill last summer, for it was an attitude which, had it
been effective, would have meant the loss of the bill with absolutely no com-
pensating gam But he often serves a very useful purpose in making the
Senators go on record, and his fearlessness is the prime cause of his being
able to render this service. As I say, this winter I have grown to have a real
liking for him.

Do come on here and have a talk over things. Faithfully yours

4187 • TO HARRISON GRAY OTIS Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential* Private & Personal Washington, January 8, 1907

My dear General Otis : 1 I have your letter of the 2d instant. You have sub-
stantially set forth my own platform. In strict confidence, I am now en-
deavoring to secure what I am sure we must in the end have; that is, prefer-
ably by mutual agreement, the exclusion of Japanese laborers from the
United States just as we should not object to the Japanese excluding our
laborers from Japan. I entirely agree with you as to the great undesirability
of the large influx of Japanese to the United States. As you probably know,
I should like greatly to restrict the immigration hither of the classes of the
lowest standard of living, even from Europe. But the Japanese who are here
should be treated well, just as well as anybody else; and Japan as a nation
should be treated with exactly the same consideration that we show to any
European nation. As for the Japanese in the schools, my belief is that under
the treaty we should show them the same privileges that we show alien
Italians or Englishmen or Germans. The cry against them is simply nonsense.
They do not average more than one bona fide Japanese child per school m
San Francisco. They cannot possibly contaminate the other scholars, (so
long as they are not grown-up Japanese, of course), and they are scattered

2 White, already leading the fight against the re-election of Chester I. Long, incum-
bent Kansas Republican senator, found in La Follette an effective ally La Follette
m 1908 compiled the record of Long’s votes, “a black record m the eyes of the
Kansas voters,” and White “took it and tried to give it vitality ” The copy he pre-
pared “aroused Kansas” Bristow defeated Long m the primary.

8 Victor Morawetz, New York City railroad lawyer

1 Harrison Gray Otis, Civil and Spanish War veteran, treasury agent in charge of

the seal islands off Alaska, 1879-1881, for many years influential, aggressive owner
of the Los Angeles Trmes-Mmor; since 1868 and until his death m 1917 an uncom-

promising Grant-era Republican

541

so widely over the city that to try to get them all to one school means that
most of them cannot attend school at all.

Moreover, I entirely agree with you that the one foundation for peace
which we have is the United States Navy. It is simply criminal to act as at
times Congress tends to act, and put a stop to the upbuilding of the navy.
The people who advocate such a course should at once stop building the
canal, give up the Philippines and Hawaii, and announce that they have no
further concern with the Monroe Doctrine, and in short that they are not
men at all.

I also entirely agree with you that we should be just to the Japanese, but
must not “get down on our bellies” (as you phrase it) to placate her or any
other nation. If you will read my last message you will see that this is precisely
the attitude I took. The Japanese seal poachers raided our islands. We killed
five of them, captured a dozen and imprisoned them for various terms, and
I gave notice that I should send a warship to the islands the coming summer.
In other words, I served notice on Japan that where she did what was wrong
we would instantly resent it. On the other hand, where we have been wrong
I shall do my best to see that we right the wrong. Sincerely yours

4188 • to william 11 Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 8, 1907

My dear Emperor William: There need never be so much as a moment’s un-
easiness on your part lest I should be misled by such a story as that which
Mr. Carnegie repeated, first to me, and then — extraordinary to relate — to
your Ambassador. 1 Beyond a moment’s wonder as to why, and in what form,
the story was originally told Carnegie, and as to whether or not the original
narrator himself believed it, I never gave the matter a second thought, until
Speck spoke to me about it; I did not even mention it to Root. It is a story
of a very common type. I am always being told of Japanese or German or
English spies inspecting the most unlikely places — the Moro Castle at
Havana, for instance, or some equally antiquated and indefensible fort; and
now and then I learn of a high official in some West Indian island or South
American republic who has been thrown into a fever by the (wholly
imaginary) information that an agent of mine has been secretly inspecting
his dominions. I have no time to devote to thinking of fables of this kind, I
am far too much occupied with real affairs, both foreign and domestic.
Your Majesty may-rest assured that no such tale as this of your building your
fleet “against America” will ever cause me more than good-natured amuse-
ment.

I have entire confidence in your genuine friendliness to my country, and
I am glad to say that during the last five years there has been in America a
steady growth of good will towards Germany. Primarily owing to your

'For Carnegie’s story see No 4189.

542

attitude, the relations of the two countries have been placed on an excellent
footing. Let me add a word of hearty praise for the share which, under
Your Majesty, Baron Sternberg has had in bringing about this happy result.
He has more than justified your choice; for while jealously guarding the
honor and interest of Germany, he has sought every opportunity to give
Americans a feeling of confidence in and regard for Germany.

Such an attitude of credulous and unreasoning distrust as that portrayed
in the tale Carnegie repeated is found here and there in every country at
different times; there are always international backbiters who appeal to
international suspicion. Do you remember in Thackeray’s Book of Snobs
the snob of the London clubs who is always repeating gossip and slander
about foreign nations^ 5 It was sixty years ago when Thackeray wrote of
him* — “He is the man who is really seriously uncomfortable about the de-
signs of Russia and the atrocious treachery of Louis-Philippe. He it is who ex-
pects a French fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye on the American
President, every word of whose speech (goodness help him 1 ) he reads, xxxx
Lord Palmerston’s being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles paid, by
what house in the city, is a favorite theme with this kind of snob ” The type
is not extinct yet in England, nor in my own and other countries, for that
matter.

Let me repeat that no distrust will be sown between Germany and
America by any gossip; I sincerely believe that the growth of good feeling
between the two nations is steady and permanent.

Your suggestion about my sending tariff experts to Germany to discuss
the tariff questions between the two countries has proved admirable, and I
hope for the best results therefrom.

With high regard, believe me, Very faithfully yours

4189 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Private Washington, January 10, 1907

My dear Mr. Ambassador: There is one not very important thing of which
I think you should be informed; altho I do not see that either you or I
can do anything about it. Apparently the members of the present British
Cabinet talk with extreme freedom to Carnegie. In one instance, at least, this
has been most unwise on their part, as is shown by the following incident.
Mr Carnegie recently came first to me and then to Root with a story that
he had been told by a member of the Cabinet (whose name he gave me, but
which I forget) that the British Ambassador at Berlin had informed the
said member of the Cabinet, or else the whole Cabinet, that at a recent con-
versation with him the Emperor had stated that he was building his navy
against America (this was to show that he was not building it against Eng-
land) and was also hostile to The Hague conference. Carnegie seemed much
disturbed over the information, which naturally did not impress me in the

543

least — in the first place, because even if the Emperor had said it I did not
regard it as a fact of importance, and in the next place because I could not be
at all confident that the conversation coming thru three or four people had,
by the time it reached me any resemblance at all to what it originally was. In
other words, it was an instance of that international gossip with which one
is deluged if one chooses to listen to it.

So far Carnegie had not done any mischief; but what must he then do, of
all things in the world, but call on Speck and complain bitterly of the Em-
peror’s hostility to America and to peace, as shown by the conversation in
question 1 Speck of course cabled the news home, and I received a somewhat
lurid cable from the Emperor in consequence. 1 I answered it by letter. I
enclose you copies of both. It is unnecessary to say how careful you must
be that they do not get out; but as I cannot possibly tell whether something
about the matter may not get back to London from Berlin I think it well
that you should be fully informed.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. Reid. I trust I need not say what a
genuine pleasure it has been to see you both.

With all good wishes, believe me, Faithfully yours

4190 • to oscar Solomon straus Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 1 1, 1907

My dear Mr. Straus ; There will have to be a complete change in the Daily
Consular and Trade Reports. In the issue for January 9th there is a report
from Special Agent Crist, of the Transvaal, which contains an insult to
England. 1 I should like an immediate statement from Major Carson 2 as to
whether there is any possible excuse for the gross carelessness (to use no
harsher term) which permitted the publication of such a report. I feel that all
these comments should be supprest.

Furthermore, I call your attention to the report of September 20th last
showing, with very grave impropriety, the confidential report of Consul
General Skinner as to German and English shipping m the Mediterranean,

1 “All Mr Carnegie has heard 111 London are foul and filthy lies,” the Kaiser had
cabled, “the aim of which is but too clear to sow distrust between us two It is the
most unheard intrigue ever set up against me and the German Empire. ... I am
not enthusiastic about the [Hague] Conference . . . [but] it is really too absurd
to believe me so deprived of all common sense as to build my fleet against you’” —
Wilhelm II to Roosevelt, undated, Roosevelt Mss.

1 Special Agent Raymond F Crist, in describing the discrimination against American
businessmen m Johannesburg, concluded that “a policy of exploitation of South
Africa for the benefit of England seems to be indicated” At the same time, he
continued, labor problems “together with the politics of the nonconformist con
science m England have caused European capital to withhold support of investments
partially developed.”

a John M Carson, chief of the Bureau of Manufacturers, the bureau which issued
the Daily Consular and T rade Reports

544

which had attracted, very naturally, comment in the London Press. 8 It would
be better to have these reports abolished entirely than to permit the repetition
of indiscretions of this nature; and I authorize you to take any measure, how-
ever drastic, to see that there is no possibility of the recurrence in the future
of such incidents as these. Sincerely yours

4191 • TO GEORGE EDMUND FOSS Roosevelt MsS .

Washington, January 11, 1907

Sir: I feel so strongly that there should be two 'first-class battleships, of the
maximum size and speed and with their primary battery all of twelve-inch
guns, added to the navy this session, that I desire to lay the matter before
your Committee thru this letter. These two big ships should include the one
provided for last year and the one provided for this year. It must be remem-
bered that I am not asking for any increase m the navy, because unless we
can provide at the rate of a battleship per year our navy will go backward. 1
Moreover, I am advising that our money be spent economically. It has been
a waste of money to provide such ships as the single-turret monitors, and
while the cruisers, and especially the great armored cruisers, serve some use-
ful purposes, it would nevertheless have been infinitely better to have spent
the money which actually was spent on them in the construction of first-
class battleships. Our great armored cruisers are practically as expensive to
build and maintain as battleships, and yet, taking the battleship all around for
the purposes for which a navy is really needed, its superiority to the armored
cruiser is enoimous. I thoroly believe in developing and building an adequate
number of submarines; I believe in building torpedo-boat destroyers; there
must be a few fast scouts, and, of course, various auxiliary vessels of different
kinds. But the strength of the navy rests primarily upon its battleships, and m
building these battleships it is imperatively necessary, from the standpoint
alike of efficiency and economy, that they should be the very best of their
kind. In my judgment we are not to be excused if we build any battleship

3 According to the London Standard, representatives of the leading British steam-
ship companies “ridiculed” statements by Robert P Skinner, Umted States Consul at
Marseille, that German shipping was taking over the commerce of the Mediterranean
from the British,

‘ 1 An identical letter was sent to Hale, chairman of the Senate Naval Committee A
few days later Roosevelt, to hasten the committee’s action, released this letter to the
press. There followed a prolonged discussion m the newspapers on the merits of
a big navy and the dreadnought type of ship. Both houses of Congress, however,
accepting the recommendation of their naval committees, fulfilled Roosevelt’s de-
mands for the authorization of one dreadnought and the appropriation for two. The
only opposition on the floor of Congress came on February 15 m the House when
Burton proposed to appropriate only the funds for the battleship authorized m the
previous year. After a brief debate his amendment was defeated by 114 to 146 In
this and all later debates on dreadnought construction, Roosevelt’s arguments for
the all-big-gun ship which were drawn from data supplied by Sims (see No 4071)
were left unchallenged.

545

inferior to those now being built by other nations. I should be glad if a limi-
tation could be put by international agreement to the size of battleships here-
after to be built. I have found, however, that it will undoubtedly be imprac-
ticable to secure any such agreement in the near future. In the first-class
navies generally these big battleships have already been built or are now
building. We cannot afford to fall behind, and we shall fall behind if we fail
to build first-class battleships ourselves. Unless we intend to go on building
up the fleet, we should abandon every effort to keep the position which we
now hold, whether in the Pacific Ocean or in American waters generally.
Our justification for upholding the Monroe Doctrine and for digging the
Panama Canal must rest primarily upon our willingness to build and main-
tain a first-class fighting fleet. Be it remembered, moreover, that such a fleet is
by far the most potent guaranty of peace which this nation has or can ever
have.

I therefore desire to lay before you the following reasons for my belief
in the advantages of battleships of large displacement, with their primary
batteries all of one type of big gun, as compared with all other fighting craft.
I need hardly say that in what I am about to write I speak of one type of
battleship when compared with another type on the supposition that both
are handled equally well and that the conditions under which they meet are
normal. A great superiority of skill will compensate for a marked inferiority
in ship or weapons, and under abnormal conditions even an ordinarily poor
ship may be a match for a ,ghip which, under usual conditions, is far its
superior.

Much of the information showing the superior value of battleships of
large displacement, high speed and great gunpower, is of a very technical
nature and cannot be briefly stated. This is especially true of certain confi-
dential information concerning the requirements necessary for efficient long-
range gunfire; it being understood that in this sense efficiency of gunfire
refers exclusively to hitting, that is, to the number of large projectiles that
can be landed against an enemy’s hull m a given time, and not to the number
of all cahbers, including six-inch, etc., that can be fired in a given time; which
latter is known as the “volume of fire” — a popular expression having no
useful meaning in a military sense.

But disregarding these arguments, it may still be clearly shown that a
certain sum of money appropriated for naval construction can be more advan-
tageously expended for large, high freeboard vessels, having many large guns
of the same caliber, than for smaller vessels of lower freeboard, having fewer
large guns, and numerous small guns. For example:

Now that a high degree of skill has been developed in naval marksman-
ship, especially with heavy guns, future battle ranges will be so great (three
or four miles) that small guns (six-inch, etc.) will be practically ineffective,
especially against large vessels having all of their guns and gun-crews in
twelve-inch turrets, behind heavy armor.

546

Therefore the effective offensive power of a battleship may now be
measured by the number of heavy (twelve-inch) guns she can fire on either
broadside. For the ordinary battleship this effective broadside fire consists of
four twelve-inch guns.

It follows as a matter of course that a large ship having a broadside fire of
ten twelve-inch guns could promptly destroy a battleship of the usual type
having four twelve-inch guns; and with the advantage of the greater speed
of the larger vessel, which would enable her to choose her own distance, she
would be more than a match for two of the smaller vessels.

But as battleships are not intended to fight singly, their efficiency must be
determined by a comparison of their relative abilities when fighting in fleet
formation. In this respect a relatively small squadron of large battleships
having the same number of heavy guns as a much larger squadron of small
battleships, has a still greater natural advantage, which is inherent in the
design of the large vessels. This advantage consists in the ability of the small
squadron of large vessels to concentrate upon a limited part of the enemy’s
line, the fire of many more heavy guns than the ships of that part of the line
are able to return, which of course would result in the successive destruction
of the entire fleet of small vessels.

Putting the extreme case for the sake of illustration, this may be shown by
comparing the fighting value of two squadrons having exactly the same
number of heavy guns, mounted in one case on a few large vessels and in
the other on many small ones. Thus, a squadron of ten small vessels, each
having a broadside fire of two heavy guns, or twenty guns in all, must
inevitably be defeated by a squadron of two large vessels, each having a
broadside fire of ten heavy guns; because the squadron of small vessels would
be about two miles long, and therefore cannot concentrate all of its fire
effectively upon the two large vessels, whereas the latter, by the great
concentration of their heavy guns, all within a length of half a mile, can
readily destroy the small vessels nearest to them in the line, and, in the same
manner, successively destroy the remainder.

That is to say, the large vessels can always attain the object sought in all
battles, namely, the concentration of a superior force upon an inferior one —
upon a part of the enemy’s line, while the remaining parts are outside of
effective range; and no tactical skill on the part of the squadron of small
vessels can counteract this advantage, because the ability to concentrate is
inherent in the design of the large vessels.

The squadron of large vessels must of course be able to choose its own
distance and relative position, which it can always do, because of the much
greater speed that can be given to vessels of large displacement.

The same is true, tho to a less degree, when we compare vessels having
a broadside of four twelve-inch guns (the ordinary battleship) with those
having a broadside of ten twelve-inch guns (the battleships proposed).

From the above it seems evident that, from the point of view of naval

547

efficiency alone, we should build vessels each mounting as many heavy guns
as practicable. That is to say, if it be decided that our naval force should be
increased by a broadside fire of forty heavy guns, then efficiency demands
that we build four high-speed ships each having a broadside fire of ten
twelve-inch guns, rather than a greater number of smaller ships having a
broadside fire of four twelve-inch guns each.

For the reasons given above, a squadron of vessels each having a broad-
side fire of twelve or more heavy guns, would be more powerful than a
squadron having the same number of guns mounted on vessels having a
broadside of ten guns each; and the sole reason for not advocating more
than ten guns on a broadside is that such vessels are not at present necessary,
as none of the vessels of our possible enemies have a greater offensive force.
The principle, however, holds good, that, given the same number of twelve-
inch guns in each of two squadrons, the squadron having the most guns on
each of its vessels (and consequently the greatest flexibility in maneuvering
and concentration of fire) will be the most powerful, assuming skill m
marksmanship, tactics, etc., to be equal.

While the question of economy should not be allowed to diminish the
naval force (the number of effective guns) required for national defense, it
may nevertheless be stated, incidentally, that we can increase our naval force
by a broadside fire of, say, forty twelve-inch guns, at considerably less cost
by building ships having a broadside fire of ten heavy guns each, than by
building a greater number of smaller ships, each having a less broadside fire.

For example, four large vessels, mounting forty heavy guns, would cost
about forty million dollars, whereas ten small ships mounting the same total
number of heavy guns would cost about seventy million. Moreover, tho a
large ship consumes more coal, a small ship, having a large number of small
guns (six-inch, etc.), actually requires more men and officers than a large one,
having heavy guns only, and consequently each small ship costs at least as
much to maintain, and to repair. For example, the complement of the
Dreadnought , of 18,000 tons, is 690 officers and men, while that of the
Louisiana, of 16,000 tons, is about 850. Therefore, for the sum that it would
cost to maintain ten small ships, we could maintain a squadron of four large
ones, that would be greatly superior in tactical qualities, total effective hitting
capacity, ability to fight the guns in a heavy sea, speed, protection, and the
inherent ability to concentrate its gunfire (and which therefore could
readily defeat the ten small vessels), and make a yearly saving of over four
million in maintenance, not to mention a saving of about thirty million, or
over forty per cent, in the original cost; and we would require fewer men
and officers to handle the more efficient fleet.

In addition to the above indicated tactical qualities of large vessels, they
also possess the great advantage of carrying their guns at a considerably
greater height above the water, thus enabling them to fight them effectively
when some of the guns of vessels of lower freeboard could not even have

548

their ports open. For example, the Michigan and South Carolina are defective
in this respect, having their forward turret guns at a height of only twenty-
four feet above the water, while those of the British Dreadnought are at a
height of about thirty-five feet.

All first-class foreign maritime nations, including for example England,
Russia and Japan, are now laying down or preparing to lay down high-speed
battleships of from 18,000 to 20,000 tons displacement, with main batteries
composed exclusively of heavy guns.

It is therefore manifest that an adherence on the part of this country to
the smaller types of low freeboard ships, with mixt batteries and few heavy
guns, would manifestly place us at a great disadvantage, because we would
be paying more per twelve-inch gun of broadside fire than our rivals, and
these guns would be less effective in battle.

I enclose a copy of a discussion on this subject by Lieutenant Commander
William S. Sims of the United States Navy, an officer whose signal service
to our navy in the development of its marksmanship cannot be overstated.
Very respectfully

4192 ■ TO ANNA CABOT MILLS LODGE Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, January 1 1, 1907

Dear Nannie: I return Gissing’s book on Dickens 1 and also The Greek View
of Life , 2 Isn’t it curious how much resemblance there is between the Japanese
spirit and the Greek spirit of the Periclean age? The Japanese, unlike the
Greeks, were able to transform their spirit of intense but particularistic
patriotism into a broad national patriotism, and so they have been formidable
as a nationality in a way in which it was wholly impossible for the Greeks
ever to be. It is curious that one of the worst of the Greek attitudes, that
toward women, should be reproduced in the Japan of today. Ever yours

4193 * to Gifford pinchot Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, January 11, 1907

Dear Gifford: After talking over the matter with Jim I feel we ought not to
wait m the Land Office business. On Jim’s recommendation, as he personally
knows the man, who was in Williams and in the class ahead of him, I shall
offer the Land Commissionership to Judge Ballinger of Seattle. I am not
sure that we can get him. Keep your eyes open, however, so that we may be
sure to have alternative choices. Faithfully yours

1 George Robert Gissing, Charles Dickens , A Critical Study (New York, 1898).

2 Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, The Greek Viev: of Life (London, 1898).

549

4194 * T0 JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, January 12, 1907

My dear Mr. Speaker: I feel very strongly that whatever solution the
Conference Committee comes to about the immigration business, there should
be a provision to permit me to make an exhaustive investigation into this
immigration matter. 1 1 am perfectly well aware that nothing can be done at
the first session of the next Congress, but there is not any thoro study of
this subject available now. I would want a Commission which would enable
me — in all probability not until my successor has been elected — to put be-
fore the Congress a plan which would amount to a definite solution of this
immigration business, which would provide for keeping out the unfit, physi-
cally, morally or mentally, as is not now provided; which would provide
for the proper distribution of the immigrants here, and therefore for their
more rapid assimilation with our people, which would at least minimize the
dangers to which the immigrants, and especially the unmarried women and
girls are, under present conditions, subjected. I do not believe that any bill
the Conference will report can thoroly meet the situation. I do not believe
that any such bill, for instance, will strike at the root of many of our diffi-
culties — that is, at the conduct of the steamship companies; for I think we
should abolish the steerage passage of the steamship companies and put a stop
to their constant effort to secure an artificially inspired immigration to this
country. At present I have not the information which would enable me to
give my views on this subject, and I cannot get it in entirely satisfactory
form unless provision is made to have a really thoro investigation such as I
have mentioned. The provision for this investigation would be an addition
to whatever act you chose to pass and not a substitution for it. Sincerely
yours

4195 • TO ALFRED THAYER MAHAN Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Washington, January 12, 1907

My dear Captain Mahan: I have your letter of the 10th instant. Haven’t you
gone far enough with newspapers to understand a matter like this, and a state-

1 The Conference Committee of the Senate and the House, then considering a general
immigration bill, accepted a House amendment creating an immigration commission
The committee provided that on the commission there should be three senators and
three representatives to be selected by Congress and three experts to be appointed
by the President In March, shortly after the bill was passed, Roosevelt appointed
Jeremiah W Jenks, Charles P. Neill, and William R. Wheeler, an Oakland, Cali-
fornia, transportation executive. Senator William P Dillingham, as chairman, sub-
mitted m 1 911 the report that became the basis for subsequent restrictive immigration
policy

Besides creating the commission, the act of 1907 strengthened earlier immigration
legislation and excluded Japanese coolies For details of the act, see Jeremiah W
Jenks and W. Jett Lauck, The Immigration Problem (New York, 1926), pp 380-383,
438

55 °

ment made as that statement was made? It isn’t worth a second thought; and
don’t you know me well enough to believe that I am quite incapable of such
an act of utter folly as dividing our fighting fleet? I have no more thought of
sending four battleships to the Pacific while there is the least possible fric-
tion with Japan than I have of going thither in a rowboat myself. On the con-
trary, if there should come the most remote danger of war I should at once
withdraw every fighting craft from the Pacific until our whole navy could
be gathered and sent there in a body. Last year, as soon as the trouble about
the poaching sealers occurred, I immediately got into touch with the Depart-
ment so as to order the instant leaving of the Pacific waters by every one of
our war vessels if the trouble developed. I have taken all our battleships away
from the Asiatic Station. We have a squadron of cruisers out there. No battle-
ship is to go there.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

4196 • TO LOUIS DEMBITZ BRANDEIS Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 14, 1907

My dear Mr. Brandeis : 1 The enclosed report of Insurance Commissioner
Drake of the District of Columbia explains itself. Will you be good enough
to give me your judgment upon it and return it to me at the earliest possible
moment, as I desire to lay the matter before Congress very soon?

I read with great interest (altho not with as much knowledge of the sub-
ject as I should like to have) your two recent articles. Sincerely yours

1 Louis Dembitz Brandeis was conducting his vigorous and successful campaign to
provide insurance for persons of small means m Massachusetts by establishing a
savings-bank insurance program under the supervision of the state. The man and
his plan had first received national attention after Collier's Weekly , m its September
15, 1906, issue, published his article, “Wage-Earners’ Life Insurance” A second
widely read article, “Greatest Life Insurance Wrong,” was published on December 20
by the Independent . By January 1907, Brandeis was recognized as an outstanding
authority on ail phases of insurance reform, see Alpheus T. Mason, Brandeis; A
Free Man's Life (New York, 1946), ch xi.

Roosevelt and Brandeis, both advocates of effective regulation of insurance
companies, differed as to means Characteristically, Roosevelt preferred federal and
Brandeis state control. Questioning the constitutionality of federal control, however,
Roosevelt at this time urged legislation that would apply only to the District of
Columbia With his recommendation for such legislation he submitted Drake’s report
on this matter together with Brandeis’ opinion Both Brandeis and Drake shared
Roosevelt’s announced opposition to the recommendation of the National Association
of Insurance Commissioners that the salaries of the heads of insurance companies be
limited to $50,000 a year Brandeis suggested, however, that all policies issued by a
company should include a statement of the salary of the company’s president.
Brandeis desired fuller annual reports than did Drake but agreed with Drake on the
necessity for standaid policy forms, see House Domment , 59 Cong, 2 sess., no. 559
The careful analyses of Brandeis and Drake, the recommendations of the Presi-
dent, and the recent disclosures of the Armstrong investigation, however, failed to
influence Congress The question of insurance regulation in the District of Columbia,
referred to the Judiciary Committee, died there

55 1

4197 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, January 14, 1907

My dear Reid: It would never do to show that correspondence to the King,
because if he happened to take offense at something the Kaiser had said, as he
well might, it would bring me into trouble as violating the confidence of
the Kaiser. I would not want the Kaiser to feel that I had communicated a
letter of his, even tho he did not mark it as confidential, to the King But I
feel that you should have the correspondence, so that, in case from the
Kaiser’s side the matter should get in twisted shape to the King, you would
be able at once to set him right — even in that event, however, only after
communicating with me. During my service as President I have had all kinds
of queer confidences reposed in me, and queer letters to me by various indi-
viduals, from the Kaiser down, but I have been careful not to repeat them
because I felt it would be doing merely mischief.

As to the Pilgrims’ dinner to Mr. Bryce, you are certain to say the right
thing anyhow, and I have nothing to suggest.

It was delightful to catch a glimpse of your daughter the other evening.
With warm regards t,o Mrs Reid, believe me, Faithfully yours

4198 * TO CHARLES PATRICK NEILL Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 15, 1907

My dear Commissioner Neill: In pursuance of the conversation held last
evening with you and Mr. Garfield after Mr Harriman and Mr. Adams had
left, I hereby request you, together with Mr. Garfield and Mr. Starek, the
Government accountant of whom you spoke last evening, to examine this
letter of Mr. Hanks of January 10th, with the accompanying papers, and to
report to me definitely as to the specific charges therein made, notably the
specific charges on page 2, as to which Mr. Garfield took a memorandum
containing the positive affirmations of Mr. Harriman and the positive denials
of Mr Adams 1 Your committee cannot go into indefinite charges; but I
should like you to take the definite charges I have quoted, and any other
specific instances contained in this letter or any specific instances which Mr.

1 George W. R. Harriman and Charles S. Hanks, at Roosevelt’s direction, had first
been permitted to examine the records of the Interstate Commerce Commission and
then, m June 1906, been employed as statisticians by the I.C.C in order to procure
evidence for their claim that a thorough investigation of railroad accounts would
show that freight and passenger rates could be reduced an average of 10 per cent
without reducing wages or dividends. On January 10 Hanks submitted their report,
which charged that the chief statistician of the commission, Henry C. Adams, had
falsified the sworn returns of railroad companies, reported a false capitalization for
the Seaboard Air Line, and calculated other capitalizations incorrectly. Neill and
Garfield, directed by Roosevelt to investigate these charges and Adams’ denials, re-
ported m every case m favor of Adams. Their full report and the details relevant
to each accusation are printed in Senate Document, 59 Cong, 2 sess, no. 285. See
also No 4225.

55 z

Harriman gives which yon think of importance, and report to me thereon,
so that I may know, as to these specific instances, whether Mr. Adams has
done anything that is wrong in form or anything that is wrong in substance.
Incidentally I should like to know, if there be anything wrong in what has
been done, whether the Interstate Commerce Commission is now asking its
questions in a way that will prevent a recurrence of the wrong. Finally, I
should like your report to be such that in case anything wrong be shown
I shall be informed whether it is merely trivial or whether it is serious.
Sincerely yours

4199 • TO HILARY ABNER HERBERT Roosevelt M.SS.

Washington, January 16, 1907

Gentlemen ; 1 I regret that it is not in my power to be with you at your
celebration. I join with you in honoring the life and career of that great
soldier and high-minded citizen whose fame is now a matter of pride to all
our countrymen. Terrible tho the destruction of the Civil War was, awful
tho it was that such a conflict should occur between brothers, it is yet a
matter for gratitude on the part of all Americans that this, alone among con-
tests of like magnitude, should have left to both sides as a priceless heritage
the memory of the mighty men and the glorious deeds that the iron days
brought forth. The courage and steadfast endurance, the lofty fealty to the
right as it was given to each man to see the right, whether he wore the gray
or whether he wore the blue, now make the memories of the valiant feats,
alike of those who served under Grant and of those who served under Lee,
precious to all good Americans General Lee has left us the memory, not
merely of his extraordinary skill as a General, his dauntless courage and high
leadership in campaigns and battle, but also of that serene greatness of soul
characteristic of those who most readily recognize the obligations of civic
duty. Once the war was over he instantly undertook the task of healing and
binding up the wounds of his countrymen, in the true spirit of those who
feel malice toward none and charity toward all, in that spirit which from the
throes of the civil war brought forth the real and indissoluble Union of
today. It was eminently fitting that this great man, this war-worn veteran
of a mighty struggle, who, at its close, simply and quietly undertook his
duty as a plain, everyday citizen, bent only upon helping his people in the
paths of peace and tranquillity, should turn his attention toward educational
work; toward bringing up in fit fashion the younger generation, the sons of
those who had proved their faith by their endeavor in the heroic days.
There is no need to dwell on General Lee’s record as a soldier The son

1 This letter was addressed as follows “To the Hon Hilary A. Herbert, Chairman,
Chief Justice Seth Shepherd, General Marcus J Wright, Judge Charles B. Howry,
Mr, William A Gordon, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, President Edwin Alderman,
Mr. Joseph Wilmer, And others of the Committee of Arrangement for the Cele-
bration of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of General Robert E Lee.”

553

of Light-Horse Harry Lee, of the Revolution, he came naturally by his
aptitude for arms and command. His campaigns put him in the foremost rank
of the great captains of all time. But his signal valor and address in war are
no more remarkable than the spirit in which he turned to the work of peace
once the war was over The circumstances were such that most men, even of
high character, felt bitter and vindictive or deprest and spiritless, but General
Lee’s heroic temper was not warped nor his great soul cast down. He stood
that hardest of all strains, the strain of bearing himself well thru the gray
evening of failure, and therefore out of what seemed failure he helped to
build the wonderful and mighty triumph of our national life, in which all
his countrymen, north and south, share. Immediately after the close of hos-
tilities he announced, with a clear-sightedness which at that time few indeed
of any section possest, that the interests of the Southern States were the
same as those of the United States, that the prosperity of the South would
rise or fall with the welfare of the whole country; and that the duty of its
citizens appeared too plain to admit of doubt. He urged that all should unite
in honest effort to obliterate the effects of war and restore the blessings of
peace; that they should remain in the country, strive for harmony and good
feeling, and devote their abilities to the interests of their people and the heal-
ing of dissensions. To every one who applied to him this was the advice he
gave. Altho absolutely without means, he refused all offers of pecuniary aid,
and all positions of emolument, altho many such, at a high salary, were
offered him. He declined to go abroad, saying that he sought only “a place
to earn honest bread while engaged in some useful work.” This statement
brought him the offer of the presidency of Washington College, a little
institution in Lexington, Va., which had grown out of a modest foundation
known as Liberty Hall Academy. Washington had endowed this Academy
with one hundred shares of stock that had been given him by the State of
Virginia, which he had accepted only on condition that he might with them
endow some educational institution. To the institution which Washington
helped to found in such a spirit, Lee, in the same fine spirit, gave his services
He accepted the position of President at a salary of $1500 a year, in Older,
as he stated, that he might do some good to the youth of the South. He
applied himself to his new work with the same singleness of mind which he
had showed in leading the Army of Northern Virginia. All the time by
word and deed he was striving for the restoration of real peace, of real
harmony, never uttering a word of bitterness nor allowing a word of
bitterness uttered in his presence to go unchecked. From the close of the war
to the time of his death all his great powers were devoted to two objects to
the reconciliation of all his countrymen with one another, and to fitting the
youth of the South for the duties of a lofty and broad-minded citizenship.

Such is the career that you gather to honor; and I hope that you will take
advantage of the one hundredth anniversary of General Lee’s birth by ap-
pealing to all our people, in every section of this country, to commemorate

554

his life and deeds by the establishment, at some great representative educa-
tional institution of the South, of a permanent memorial, that will serve the
youth of the coming years, as he, in the closing years of his life, served those
who so sorely needed what he so freely gave. Sincerely yours

4200 * TO RICHARD ACHILLES BALLINGER Roosevelt MsS.

Telegram Washington, January 16, 1907

Am delighted with your telegram to Garfield. Of course consult your busi-
ness associates and take what time is necessary, but I earnestly hope that
you will see what I conscientiously believe to be the fact, namely, that it is
your clear duty to help me out by taking this peculiarly important and re-
sponsible post. You and Garfield will lift an immense burden off my shoul-
ders if you will take this post and be his associate m the Department of the
Interior. It seems to me that I should receive all the support possible from
the men who believe in my way of handling things and the only way you
can support me is to take this position.

4201 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 16, 1907

My dear Mr. Speaker: In my letter to Representative Watson last year, in
which I was practically appealing on a campaign platform for votes for a
Republican Congress, I said:

“I hope, and I have reason to believe, that favorable action will be taken
on the bill limiting the number of hours of employment of railway em-
ployees.” I told a great many railroad people, in connection with the argu-
ments Gompers was using, that in the sentence in question I was speaking for
the Republican party and for the Republican majority in Congress. Natu-
rally, I very earnestly hope that the House will as soon as possible pass the
Senate bill or some similar bill on the subject. 1 Cannot this be done?

1 saw Watson this morning He told me what your plan was in the subsidy
business and I shall govern myself accordingly. 2 Sincerely yours

x The Senate on January 10 had passed a bill, guided on the floor by La Follette and
Dolhver, which prohibited any railroad from continuing operating personnel on
duty for more than sixteen consecutive hours A ten-hour rest period, after such
duty, was made mandatory The House revised the bill to prevent the railroads only
from “knowingly” continuing men on jobs beyond the sixteen hours stipulated. To
a minority of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce this revision was
designed to prevent enforcement of the bill. The House also voted that the bill
should take effect a year after enactment. The Senate rejected the House bill and
the first conference report on the matter In the closing days of the session, however,
when time permitted no alternative to the House’s version, the Senate accepted it.
Roosevelt signed the bill on March 4.

2 The Senate, in 1906, had passed a ship subsidy bill in spite of a division between
Eastern and Western Republicans and the open opposition of the Democrats. For
a year it languished in the House until Cannon by parliamentary devices gave it a

555

4202 • to oscar solomon straus Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, January 18, 1907

My dear Mr. Straus: You spoke to me today about the labor decision in
South Carolina. 1 A great deal of feeling has arisen over that decision and
many of the people most affected sincerely believe that it is the end of any
effort to stop the importation of laborers under contract in the Southern
States, and that this means further damage to laborers in the Northern States
by permitting a constant inflow of cheap labor under contract to the
Southern States. If the apprehensions exprest are just, there may be need of
further legislation. I should like to have you go very carefully over the mat-
ter and be ready to talk over it with me. I shall consult Mr. Neill about it,
because Mr. Neill has had exceptional advantages m the way of keeping m
touch with the labor people and of knowing their feelings as well as their

privileged status, The mechanics of passage m the House were as follows Grosvenor,
chairman of the Committee on the Merchant Marine, brought the bill out of his
committee as an ocean mail rather than as a straight ship subsidy In the previous
century there had been frequent precedents for financial aid foi mail service. On
January 19th Grosvenor reported the bill to the Committee of the Whole House
which received, at the same time, by previous agreement between Grosvenor and
the Democrats, the adverse minority report of the committee Four days later
Roosevelt sent the House a special message urging enactment of the icviscd bill
as a means of increasing our trade with South America and the Orient For the
next month, while the House was occupied with other business, Cannon permitted
little debate on the issue. Then, on February 25, Dalzell submitted a resolution
from the Rules Committee giving the bill pnority in debate in the Committee of the
Whole. Under rules of cloture the measure was quickly debated and passed Befoie
this was done, the Democrats with Midwestern Republicans obtained an amendment
eliminating subsidies for West Coast steamship lines The revised bill went to the
Senate, where Republicans for the most part accepted the House amendments but
Democratic opposition kept the measure from a vote All the maneuvering produced
by the ship subsidy bill was a product of sectional difference both in the House
and m the Senate In general, Easterners approved while Westerners 1 ejected the
subsidy principle. Debate m the Senate revealed the extent to which this sectional
differentiation threatened the control, long assured but in the recent past increasingly
uncertain, of Aldrich and his colleagues

1 An immigration agent of the state of South Carolina had visited Europe, adveitiscd
for labor, arranged and paid for passage of 500 Belgian immigrants to South
Carolina. Charles Earl, solicitor of the Department of Commerce and Labor, decided
that the agent’s actions were not a violation of the laws prohibiting contract laboi,
because, while his expenses had been paid by a private association, he had acted as
a public official and not as an individual For the text of the decision see Congres-
sional Record , 59 Cong., 2 sess , pp. 2946-2950

This, decision became a subject of debate m the Senate’s discussions on the
immigration act of 1907. The Southern senators led by Bacon and Tillman insisted
that, as a quid pro quo for their support of the amendment permitting Japanese
exclusion, the terms of this decision should be explicitly written into the act Senators
Lodge and Beveridge, speaking for the industrial North and West, protested strongly
against such an obvious attempt to circumvent the intent of the contract labor laws
On receiving assurance from the Administration that the new law would m no
way invalidate Earl’s decision, the Southerners dropped their opposition, and the
bill was immediately passed.

interests. It is a matter of grave public policy in which the administration
may be called to take definite action, and I want to be as well prepared with
the facts as possible. Sincerely yours

4203 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 19, 1907

My dear Mr. Speaker: Of course you understand that the appropriation for
the immigration investigation for which I asked is asked for in addition to
any bill which the Committee may report. I do not want to be understood
for one moment as antagonizing immigration legislation at this session; but I
was given to understand that it was by no means certain that such legislation
could be obtained; and, moreover, I felt that even if obtained there is very
much matter which cannot be covered in it and as to which I should be given
the chance to obtain full information to place before Congress for its infor-
mation. As a matter of fact, I personally hope that we will have immigration
legislation at this session; but I think that the provision for the investigation
should also be past.

With great regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4204 * TO RICHARD BARTHOLDT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 19, 1907

My dear Dr. Bartholdi: Many thanks for your letter. I will see Mr. Tawney
on Monday and do all I can. Senator Beveridge has been anxious to have me
send in a special message for his child labor bill; but after consultation it has
seemed to me that the only way of practically accomplishing anything on
this subject is to try to get thru your bill, which, as I understand it, is prac-
tically the bill which Senator Lodge past thru the Senate. 1 Sincerely yours

4205 ■ TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 19, 1907

Dear Kermit: Mr. Loeb sent you the matter about the Brownsville incident
for your debate, didn’t he> It is really not any of the Senate’s business; but

*The child labor bills before Congress were of two kinds Beveridge’s bill, an
example of the first type, prohibited the employment of children. The Senate had
already passed a bill of the second type, authorizing the Secretary of Commerce to
investigate and report on child labor For Beveridge’s measure there was little sup-
port. Even the milder measure met opposition m the House, where Bartlett of
Georgia spoke for those Southern Democrats who used a states’ rights argument to
protect die practices of Southern industry, and Tawney of Minnesota spoke for
those conservative Republicans who distrusted Commissioner Neill of the Bureau of
Labor These opponents argued that, since the Census Bureau already had the
power to investigate, no further authorization was needed Roosevelt failed to
persuade Tawney to change his mind Nevertheless, on January 21, with Bartholdt
directing the measure and Cannon clearing its path, the House passed the Senate’s
bill

they have had a terrific fight over it and now they are nearly to the crisis. 1
I do not know how it will come out. I hope those that support me will win,
but if they do not, it will not make the slightest difference in my attitude.

The other night an amusing thing happened. Nice Mrs. Bonaparte has
had a great number of rather dreary people whom she has brought around
to the various receptions and entertainments at The White House. We have
rather wondered at her choice of friends; but the mystery was solved the
other day thru her announcing with great satisfaction and in a fine philan-
thropic spirit that she was so glad that she was able to give pleasure to people
who led gray and humdrum lives by taking them around to The White
House! I wish you could have seen Mother laugh when she heard it and
realized that her entertainments were thus being used as hospitals for social
incapables. Of course Mrs. Bonaparte, who is just as kind and nice as she
can be, is really only trying to be friendly — but it is rather at the expense'
of The White House. I need not say you must not breathe a word of this
to anyone; but Mother and I felt you were discreet enough to be trusted
with a small administration joke.

People here are not the only offenders. The Emperor of Austria’s daugh-
ter, an Imperial Archduchess of exalted standing, has just sent me a note
introducing a Countess with a remarkable German name, with the exprest
hope that I would in turn introduce her into the society of “influential
Americans” — whatever that may mean. I had in the Ambassador and told
him that he must succeed in getting full information about the lady and about
exactly what it was the Archduchess wisht, before I could commit myself
one way or the other on the subject.

This week it has rained, sleeted or snowed every day. I have been so
busy that the utmost I have been able to do was to get out for a half an hour
or so in the evening after dark just to take a walk or else a trot so slow that
you would not call it a trot at all.

Archie and his guinea pigs remind me so much of you and Ted and
Ethel when you were little. The guinea pigs, who rejoice in the names of
Mr. and Mrs. Longworth, have had two small guinea pigs — the very
cunningest things you ever saw. Your loving father

4206 • TO CHARLES NEWELL FOWLER Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 20, 1907

My dear Mr. Fowler: I very earnestly hope that something can be done
about the currency this session. I am well aware that the average constitu-

‘Foraker, in a series of speeches, asked for action on his resolution authorizing the
Senate Committee on Military Affairs to investigate the Brownsville episode. While
he attacked, Spooner, Lodge, and Knox defended Roosevelt. The President had
restated his own position, presenting the evidence procured by a special investigation
of Major Blocksom and Assistant Attorney General Purdy, in a special message of
January 14

558

ency does not take much interest in the matter, because it does not know
much about it, and therefore but a limited number of Senators and Repre-
sentatives come in contact with any pressure about it. But all the con-
stituencies will take a most lively interest after the event if things go wrong.
There has been a demand for radical action in the direction of what is prac-
tically asset banking. I am not concerned with discussing this proposal at
present, for I recognize that it is useless to expect and a waste of time to
ask for radical legislation at this session. It does seem to me, however, that we
could get thru, and ought to get thru, a measure covering three or four
points which, altho not very big, yet would give real relief. The three
million limit should be removed. We should be allowed to handle customs
receipts precisely as we handle receipts from the internal revenue. Provision
should be made, whether in connection with the use of silver certificates or
otherwise, for an increase in the currency of smaller denominations. In addi-
tion it seems to me clear that a sufficiently heavily taxed emergency cur-
rency should be provided, the tax being such as to secure the automatic
contraction of the currency when the emergency does not demand it.

What is the chance for getting something like the above thnP 1 Sincerely
yours

[Handwritten] I realize that the emergency currency proposition may
cause opposition, but I hardly see why the first three propositions should be
antagonized.

4207 • TO GEORGE F. SPINNEY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 22, 1907

Dear Spinney : 1 That is a mighty good letter of yours and sounded so exactly
like the Spinney of twenty-five years ago that it made me laugh as I read it.
I have had a perfectly comic time with the Senate. They have been hop-

1 Roosevelt, increasingly concerned about currency and credit, sent a copy of this
letter to Speaker Cannon and wrote a similar letter to Senator Aldrich The Presi-
dent had already presented his views to the whole Congress m his annual message
(sec State Papers, Nat Ed XV, 378-380) Only his minimal demands were met. The
so-called Aldrich Bill, passed by both houses, permitted an increase in the issue of
notes of small denominations, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit
with national banks, as Shaw already had, customs as well as internal revenue
receipts, and increased from $3,000,000 to $9,000,000 a month, subject to the consent
of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of the Treasury, the amount
of notes which the national banks could retire. The last provision was intended, by
encouraging rapid retirement in the spring and summer, to create a reserve for
issue during the autumnal stringency. In passing the measure the Senate defeated
several amendments designed to permit limited asset banking. To this same end,
and to authorize the type of emergency currency Shaw had long advocated, Fowler
had reported a bill m the House which failed to come to a vote The Senate, how-
ever, passed a resolution instructing the Finance Committee to investigate and
report on currency and credit That report provided one basis for the Aldnch-
Vreeland Act of the following session

1 George F. Spinney, clerk, Couit of General Sessions of the Peace, New York City.

559

ping about, insisting that they could not desert Foraker, because it would
“split the party”; and I finally told the most active of the compromisers that
if they split off Foraker they split off a splinter; but that if they split off me
they would split the party neatly in two, and that I should state most un-
hesitatingly, and whenever it became necessary in public, that the opposition
to me on Brownsville was simply a cloak to cover antagonism to my actions
about trusts, swollen fortunes and the like. I added that this opposition would
be shown by voting against the Blackburn amendment. 2 Once this declara-
tion was made, Foraker was left so completely without support that he actu-
ally came into line himself, and agreed to support an amendment a little
stronger than the Blackburn amendment. That is, the Blackburn amendment
merely said that they did not question the legality of my action; whereas
the proposed amendment stated that they questioned neither the legality nor
the justice of my action. 3 I was sorry that Foraker was allowed the chance
to offer the amendment, and it was against my earnest advice that the Sena-
tors who were on my side permitted him to do so But when he “ate crow”
and took the very amendment upon which I insisted I did not see how I
could make any open protest against it. There never has been a more com-
plete case of backdown and humiliation than this of Foraker’s.

With best wishes, believe me, Faithfully yours

4208 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, January 22, 1907

My dear Mr. Secretary: In reference to Magoon’s two letters of the 1 3th and
1 6th, which are returned herewith, I need hardly add to what I said this
morning. There can be no talk of a protectorate by us. Our business is to
establish peace and order on a satisfactory basis, start the new government,
and then leave the Island, the Cuban Government taking the reins into its
own hands, tho of course it might be advisable for some little time that some
of our troops should stay in the Islands to steady things. I will not even con-
sider the plan of a protectorate, or any plan which would imply our break-
ing our explicit promise because of which we were able to prevent a war of
devastation last fall. The good faith of the United States is a mighty valuable
asset and must not be impaired. Sincerely yours

“The amendment, proposed by Democratic Senator Joseph C. S. Blackburn of
Kentucky, was one evidence of the Southern Democratic support of Roosevelt’s
Brownsville pohey. In April 1907, the President appointed Blackburn Governor of
the Canal Zone.

“Foraker himself, defining die meaning of his amendment to his resolution directing
the Military Affairs Committee to investigate the Brownsville episode, acknowledged
that it made the investigation “an investigation as to die facts and not as to the law ”
Yet he did not consider this a defeat. The amendment, he maintained, did not pre-
vent the Senate, after it ascertained the facts, from taking such action as it saw fit.

560

4209 • TO THEODORE PERRY SHONTS

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, January 22, 1907

My dear Mr. Shonts: I accept your resignation as Chairman of the Isthmian
Canal Commission, to take effect on March 4th, with extreme reluctance . 1 1
do so merely because I do not feel justified in preventing your acceptance of
the position you have been asked to take in New York — a position of such
great consequence not merely to the people with whom you will be associ-
ated in the business management of the enterprise, but to all the citizens of
New York. You have shown thruout your association with the Isthmian
Canal Commission such energy, administrative capacity, fertility of resource,
and judgment in handling men, together with such entire devotion to your
work, that I hardly know whether most to regret the fact that the national
Government is to lose you, or most to congratulate those who are to profit
by your services in your new position.

With all good wishes for your future, and with the heartiest thanks on
behalf of the Government for what you have done in the last eighteen
months in the vitally responsible position you have held, believe me, Ever
sincerely yours

4210 • TO ADIN BALLOU CAPRON Roosevelt Mss'.

Washington, January 22, 1907

My dear Mr. Capron : 1 Is there anything I can do to help along that bill as
to the pay of the navy officers? It certainly ought to pass. Won’t you come
in and see me about it? 2 Sincerely yours

4211 • TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt MsS.

Washington, January 23, 1907

Dear Ted: In view of the low condition of the family exchequer at college
I have deposited to the credit of your account check for $200, to cover the
Dickey, Mr. Bangs, Dr. Hugh Williams, and any outlying check which may
cause discomfort when presented because of the trifling circumstance that
the drawer, with a large indifference to petty details, has omitted to write

1 In submitting his resignation Shonts reminded Roosevelt that he had, on accepting
the post of chairman, reserved the right to resign once the preliminary work was
completed and the construction program fully launched. With these conditions ful-
filled, he now wished to leave the commission to become the president of the
Interborough Metropolitan Company of New York on the retirement of August
Belmont from that position Roosevelt immediately notified the press that Stevens
would be appointed chairman of the commission, see Washington Star, January 14,

1907-

l Adin Ballou Capron, Republican congressman from Rhode Island, 1897-1911.
a Congress took no action on the bill

561

on the stubs of his checkbook the amounts that the checks themselves con-
tain. Incidentally, in addressing a hard-headed businessman of the future, I
would point out that in business circles this method of keeping checkbooks
and accounts is, to put it mildly, unusual and will undoubtedly tend to de-
stroy one’s credit in financial circles.

I understand thoroly that your friends have larger allowances than you
have. You seem to have gotten among a collection of brazen pots; and that
means that the earthen pot must be mighty careful about bumping as they
go downstream together. Some of my friends, when I was in college, also
had allowances much larger than mine. My experience was that they were
quite as likely to overspend their allowances as were the fellows of more
moderate means. In any event, you will have to make up your mind that,
not only in college, but in after life, you will have to live very economically
as compared with a great number of people whom you meet; and, tho dis-
agreeable, I think it very useful that you should have to begin now. When
the object is sufficient, as in the case of the Pore., I am perfectly willing to
stand the extra amount; but I know you will feel that this must be made up
for by a very resolute effort on your part to economize in other directions.
I am very glad that you have given up the theater and drinking, and also
smoking anything except a pipe. I think you are most wise to go to Memorial
Hall. I am extremely pleased that you have not been doing anything but
study since you got back. Of course, the midyear examinations are a strain;
but, whatever the more thoughtless among your friends may say, it is a
mighty necessary thing for a fellow to do decently in his studies.

Those arrangements are excellent about White. After the speech perhaps
you can take me to the Hemenway gymnasium. Moreover, I want White and
Bacon to take me around to the Pudding for a little while . 1

The other day Sloan Simpson of Texas was here and spent the night. You
remember he was in my regiment and was an extremely good man He was
at Harvard. He was in the Pudding and Dickey, but spoke to me very bit-
terly about the Pore., saying that he and others in the Pudding had joined
in keeping out of the Pudding a man named Rice who was in the Pore., be-
cause as soon as he got into the club he dropt all connection with the rest
of his class, and in fact played the part of a thoropaced snob. I should be
very much mortified if, for any similar reason, you were kept out of the
Pudding, which is an old Harvard club with which most of the Harvard
graduates you meet will have great associations, and which has a fine demo-
cratic side to it. However, I am confident that you will keep in touch with
your class.

I am mighty glad you are going out to Groton with me on Sunday, and

1 Roosevelt was planning to visit Ted at Harvard on February 23 and Kermit at
Groton the next day. Although his plans included a talk at the Harvard Union and
reunions with several friends, the impelling reason for his trip was to see Ted
initiated into the Porcellian Club.

562

of course I am particularly pleased at your determination not to drink too
much that night at dinner. I will have to arrange whether to take my dress-
suit case with my evening clothes out to the Bishop’s or to leave it at the
Pore. I will prefer to do it at the Bishop’s. Your loving father

4212 * to paul morton Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, January 24, 1907

Dear Paul: I suppose that your letter was really based upon this Harriman
investigation. It would in my judgment be most undesirable for the ultimate
good of the railways to interfere in any way with a full and fair investigation.
Moreover, I am certain that we have got to make up our minds that the rail-
roads must not in the future do things which cannot bear the light. If trouble
comes from having the light turned on, remember it is not really due to the
light but to the misconduct which is exposed.

I quite agree with you that there is danger in ill-directed agitation, and
especially in agitation in the States; but the only way to meet it is by having
the fullest and most thoro investigation by the national Government, and in
conferring upon the national Government full power to act. The federal
authorities, including the President, must state as clearly as possible that rail-
roads who do well are to be encouraged and when they make a good show-
ing it is to be emphasized, and that the people who invest will be given a
chance of profit which alone will make them willing to invest, and which
alone will make big men willing to undertake the job.

Do you ever see Judge Gary? 1 He has assured us that the publicity given
by the investigation of the national Government to the steel corporation is
welcome, and will do good and not harm Faithfully yours

4213 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 24, 1907

My dear M'f . Speaker: Cannot that personnel bill be taken up and past> Cannot
you say a word to Chairman Foss about it? 1 As you know, it reduces ex-
pense, and it means so much for the navy. Faithfully yours

Albert Henry Gary, the principal figure in the actual organization of the United
States Steel Corporation, chairman of the board of directors until his death m 1927
A kind of high priest of American industry, he was patient, thoughtful, resolute,
humane, and without humor

1 Despite this letter and a Presidential message urging its passage, the Personnel Bill
was not even reported out of committee The failure of congressional action ended
the President’s plans for far-reachmg administrative and personnel reforms. In
August 1906 Roosevelt convened a special personnel board to which he gave the
threefold task of recommending improvements in the “present archaic system of
promotions,” suggesting ways to integrate more satisfactorily the staff and Marine
Corps into the over-all organization of the Navy, and providing for administrative
reform m the Navy Department itself. The board accomplished nothing. It failed to

5 6 3

4214 ■ TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Washington, January 24, 1907

My dear Mr. Secretary: In answer to your letter of November 30th I on
December 4th wrote you asking certain questions, some of which have not
yet been answered; but another circumstance has just come to my notice in
connection with your letter which makes it necessary for me to write again.
From your letter it seemed that the first action on the part of the Depart-
ment of Justice should be an investigation of the conduct of the District
Attorney of Wyoming. I directed that this investigation be undertaken at
the earliest moment. Assistant Attorneys General Purdy and Cooley were
detailed to undertake it and your letter and the accompanying exhibits were
given them. I understand that they will report shortly. I also sent copies of
your letter to Commissioner Richards and Senator Warren, referring them
to the Department of Justice for the exhibits. A day or two ago, at the re-
quest of Senator Warren, I saw him in company with Assistant Attorneys
General Purdy and Cooley, and he made various statements in contradiction
of some of the important assertions in reference to his action made by In-
spector Linnen. In the course of the conversation I was shown one of the
twenty-five enclosures which accompanied your letter, being marked Ex-
hibits A to M mclusive and Exhibits 1 to 12 inclusive. This is Exhibit 3. It is
headed “Synopsis in brief of Warren’s boodling operations” — this being
the first line of a typewritten statement on the first page which recites such
allegations as that twenty-four years ago, in 1883, Warren secured a Gov-
ernment homestead “by fraud and perjury”, that in 1889 he was accused m a
letter to the New York Times of being “a colossal land-grabber and a cor-
poration tool”, that in 1 890 a newspaper accused him of securing large sums
“in the way of contingent fees, interest and salary” while Territorial treas-
urer, &c., &c. At the foot of the page is a note stating that the above was
written and handed to E. B. Linnen, Special Land Inspector, by one Bartlett,
of Cheyenne, who had resided there for many years, and who had also fur-
nished the enclosed newspaper clippings. This memorandum was signed by
E. B. Linnen. Then follow several pages of newspaper clippings with head-
lines attacking Senator Warren, the headlines being, for instance, “Senator
Warren’s first graft”; “Senator Warren’s ‘oil’ room to be investigated”; “Pub-
lic office for private graft,”, &c., &c. Not a syllable of evidence is advanced
m support of these charges, and almost all of them refer to matters not

come to any agreement on departmental reform, the suggestions regarding the staff
and Marine Corps only antagonized the respective corps. Its only constructive work,
the comprehensive plan for making merit as well as seniority a criterion for advance-
ment, embodied in the Personnel Bill, was killed in Congress. The board’s work is
covered in Senate Document, 59 Cong, 2 sess, no 142. Roosevelt, in his annual
message of December 1907, repeated the recommendations for modernizing the
Navy’s promotion system and again Congress refused to take any action.

564

touched upon in your letter and with which the Department of Justice has
not the slightest power to deal.

In short, this Exhibit 3 is simply a bundle of scurrilous allegations the
truth of which there is not so much as an attempt to prove, and which, more-
over, have no relation whatever to the case, which offer no material for an
investigation by the Department of Justice; and as to which no charge has
been made by the Department of the Interior. I am utterly at a loss to under-
stand why such an exhibit should have been forwarded by the Department
of the Interior to me, especially in connection with your letter of November
30th. I assume that it was not done with your knowledge. It has a value,
however, because it deeply discredits the worth and the judgment of Inspec-
tor Linnen, upon whose findings so much of your letter of November 30th
was based. In closing that letter you say: “Herewith are the facts as related
by Inspector Linnen m his report.” One of the chief facts about Inspector
Linnen is that he should have been willing to forward such a farrago of loose
accusation, without even so much as an attempt to investigate it or to find
out the truth about it, or to comment on the irrelevancy of the charges. It
casts a grave doubt upon his discretion, judgment and good faith, and makes
me feel very much at a loss as to how far I am warranted in proceeding upon
any statements he submits. This is a matter I shall decide later.

Meanwhile, I should like Inspector Linnen’s attention called to the char-
acter of this exhibit, and a report requested from him as to why he sent it in
and for what purpose. I should also like to know why such an exhibit was
furnished to me as an exhibit with a document which it was evident that I
would have to submit, together with the exhibits, to the Department of
Justice. Moreover, from certain publications which appeared in the news-
papers it seems to me that some person or persons have given hints to the
newspapers of what this Exhibit 3 contains, it being falsely alleged that I
had ordered an investigation into the facts therein related. I should like the
names of all the men m the Department who had anything to do with draw-
ing up your letter and with forwarding it and the accompanying exhibits to
me. This Exhibit 3 was never lookt at in my office, and m the office of the
Attorney General has been in the custody of Messrs. Purdy and Cooley, and
nothing could have come out from either there or here. Very truly yours

4215 • TO MARTIN AUGUSTINE KNAPP Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 24, 1907

My dear Mr. Knapp: From your letter of January 21st and the conversations
I have had with you and your colleagues I gather that you are not prepared
to recommend any legislation to meet the group of difficulties vaguely and
comprehensively alluded to under the head of car shortage as to which there
is most complaint at the moment. Don’t you think it would be well for
your body to state this^ I fear that the shippers, after our joint interview

5 6 5

with them the other day, gained the impression that you might have im-
mediate legislation to suggest to Congress. I need hardly say that under
no circumstances do we want to suggest such legislation unless we think
it will do good. But if, as I understand to be the case, this car shortage
difficulty would be partially solved, in certain instances at least, by per-
mitting the railroads to enter into an agreement for the joint use of cars
by the railways, this is the very time to make such a proposition to the Con-
gress. I am inclined to agree with you that even as regards the present crisis
very careful inquiry would have to be made by you before you would be
able to recommend any legislation; but I think that there ought to be some
statement by you to the public, that is to me so that I can publish it, showing
just why you do not think that legislative action would at the moment be
advisable, unless on one or two points such as that permitting the railroads to
enter into an agreement for the joint use of cars.

Moreover, it seems to me very important that your Commission should
continue to lay greater stress upon the administrative side of its functions.
The railroad trouble can be settled by administrative and not by judicial ac-
tion. If your body becomes simply a court then it had better be abolished.
The only justification for its existence must come from its active exercise in
constantly increasing measure of administrative supervision and control over
the railroads. You have the right now to examine all books and papers of the
railroads. You should put your inspectors into the railroad companies and
examine the rates before they go into effect and stop the evils in advance.
In other words, develop your Commission on its administrative side and let
your judicial functions be, as they ought to be, of secondary importance. Our
whole theory has been supervision and control over the railways, and it is
absolutely impossible to obtain this merely thru judicial action. We need for
it the action of an administrative body, and if the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission does not prove to be such a body it would have to be abolished and
another administrative body would have to be established in its place as soon
as possible . 1 Sincerely yours

1 Small industrial concerns and farmers had, for some months, been unable to move
their products because of an apparent shortage of freight cars. Their plight had
produced from the Pacific Lumbermen’s Association and the Reciprocal Demurrage
Association a request that the problem of demurrage be assigned specifically to the
I.C C. The agencies further recommended that Congress should pass a law requiring
carriers to pay shippers to whom cars could not be furnished a daily sum equal
to the daily charge the carriers exacted from shippers who held cars for unloading
Railroad officials opposed these recommendations. They claimed that what
appeared to be a car shortage was really a general limitation m railroad facilities —
terminals, trackage, and yards. To expand these facilities to meet the increasing
volume of business the railroads would have to spend, James J. Hill estimated, five
billion dollars

The I C.C. after a thorough investigation of the situation took yet another view
Franklin K Lane speaking for the commission stated the conclusion as follows
“It is to us evident and beyond all controversy that the difficulties with which the
business of transportation is affected .... would not be overcome by the enactment
of a reciprocal demurrage bill. . . . The problem is one much deeper and much

566

42 1 6 ‘ TO JAMES ALBERTUS TAWNEY

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, January 24, 1907

My dear Mr. Tavmey: I am much concerned to hear that it is contemplated
to send for Chief Engineer Stevens to come here from the Isthmus. I very
earnestly protest against this being done. If there is a serious purpose to
hasten forward the digging of the canal there must not be any further inter-
ference with Mr. Stevens’ work by bringing him up here. Mr. Shonts is
being kept in his position until the 4th of March largely for the very pur-
pose of having him where your Committee can inquire of him as to appro-
priations, and obtain any information it wishes from him. Mr. Stevens should
be communicated with by cable, but everlastingly having Mr. Stevens in
Washington, dragging him up from the Isthmus, questioning him and then
sending him back, is in point of wisdom like the action of the small boy who
plants some flowers and then picks them up every hour to look at the roots
and see how they are growing. It may not be possible for Mr. Stevens to
come up now, and he ought not to be asked to. 1 Sincerely yours

P.S. I wonder if you realize what a long trip it is and what a complete
and damaging interruption of the work it is to have Mr. Stevens obliged to
take it ?

broader than a mere lack of cars and engines No doubt an inadequate supply of
these facilities is the cause of all the troubles .... on certain lines. But these in-
stances are few. The pioblem of car shortage is one in which is involved every factor
in railroading — the construction, the operation, the maintenance, and the financing
of the railroads. . . . The real cause of car shortage may lie in the too con-
servative character of the management of the road or m the unfitness and mcom-
petency of its operating officials ... It may arise out of a policy .... which
gives primary consideration to speculative stock operations It may come from an
inability to secure funds. ... It may result from an inability to secure labor and
materials. . . . This enumeration of causes is not exhaustive. It could not well be
complete without giving consideration to many mdustnal and economic factors
which at first glance would appear remote and unrelated. . .

“Clearly, . . . m justice to the carriers and in conservation of all the industrial
interests of the country . . . , whatever plan may be adopted to penalize the rail-

roads for the nonfurnishing of cars must be supplemented by some provision of law
or plan of coopeiative operation by . . . the railroads. . . ” ( Senate Document ,
59 Cong, 2 sess., numbers 233, 333, pp 499-502).

Lane’s analysis confirmed Knapp’s opposition to any reciprocal demunage bill.
None was reported from committee. The apparent car shortage was relieved, how-
ever, not only by improvements in railroad facilities, but also by the policy of the
I C.C which, m part because of Roosevelt’s directions and clearly with his approval,
encouiaged such devices as car pools and traffic management This policy was but
one example of the administrative control which, as Roosevelt noted to Knapp,
inhered in the powers of the commission No law specifically placed demurrage
under its cognizance The increasing use of administrative remedies, m this and
other instances, made possible largely by the Hepburn Act, gave to the I.CC a
continuing, effective method of control that established an important precedent m
the relation of American government to business, see Ripley, Railroads, Rates and
Regulation, ch xvi

Stevens did not come.

42 17 • TO CHARLES RUSSELL DAVIS

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, January 24, 1907

My dear Congressman Davis: 1 Will you let me know the status of your bill
to increase the salaries of the least well paid Government employees^ I would
not be competent to pass judgment upon your bill as a whole; but I am very
confident that there should be an increase in the salaries of most of those
men. I feel this especially about the rural free delivery carriers, 2 but also
about a good many others. Sincerely yours

4218 • TO JOHN FRANK STEVENS Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Washington, January 25, 1907

Do not understand what your cable refers to, but of course will take no
action until I hear from you. 1

4219 ■ TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 25, 1907

My dear Mr. Secretary: I have not answered your letter of December 17th
before, partly because I have been very busy and partly because I wisht to
consult Mr. Pmchot and other gentlemen who were present at the confer-
ence which I held in the evening of October 5th last, with representatives
from your office, the General Land Office, the Geological Survey, and the
Forest Service. You were not at this conference and are naturally unaware
of the matters that occurred there, the failure correctly to represent which
renders your letter of December 17th in large part erroneous.

The first four pages of your letter reciting what occurred up to Septem-
ber 26th substantially agrees with the records in this office, save that your
letter does not take into account the fact that my entire action m endeavor-
ing to protect the coal fields was taken as a result of information furnished
me by the Geological Survey and the Forest Service, and not on the initiative
of the Interior Department.

On page 4 you say: “It was understood that the lands were in forest
reserves that would be affected by the contemplated withdrawal.” This
“understanding” refers to the lists which were the subject of the confer-
ence of October 5th. It is extraordinary that there should have been any
such understanding in the Interior Department (from which you at the

1 Charles Russell Davis, Republican congressman from Minnesota, 1903-1925, had
introduced two bills to raise the salaries of government employees, neither of which
was reported from committee
’This group received from $396 to $720 per year.

1 Stevens, on being informed of Shonts’ resignation, had cabled Roosevelt- “Request

no action until matter thoroughly discussed.” Five days later Stevens wrote his letter
of resignation, see Numbers 4239, 4242.

568

time were absent, Mr. Ryan being Acting Secretary) ; for a glance at the
lists and maps of townships, ranges and forest reserves would show that
the understanding was erroneous At the foot of the page is the memoran-
dum sent by the Acting Secretary to me as the result of the conference on
October 5th. This memorandum I returned with my approval, supposing
that it carried out the agreement of the mght before and not looking at it as
closely as I should have lookt. It did not, however, do so. What I said was
that I would have the lands in the lists submitted by the Geological Survey
situated m the forest reserves withdrawn from coal entry only, the lands
outside the forest reserves not officially reported to contain coal withdrawn
from coal entry only, and the lands outside the forest reserves officially re-
ported by the Geological Survey to contain coal withdrawn from all forms
of entry.

However, even the proper carrying out of this memorandum would not
have resulted in making the withdrawals actually announced by the Interior
Department. In the first place, the memorandum as submitted and approved
excepted forest reserves from complete withdrawal, while nevertheless a
considerable part of the area finally thus completely withdrawn was forest
reserve land — (you yourself saying in the letter to which I am replying,
pages 4 and 6, that the first list of some twenty million acres, which was the
direct cause of the memorandum, was all forest reserve lands) . In the second
place, this memorandum also excepted from complete withdrawal land out-
side the forest reserves unless the Geological Survey should report it as offi-
cially known to contain workable coal; and no showing is made that the
Director of the Geological Survey ever made any such official declaration.
On the contrary your letter shows that in the case of the lists transmitted
by the Geological Survey it requested or intimated in each case that the
withdrawal should be from coal entry only. This renders inaccurate your
statement in paragraph 2, page 7, m reference to my approval of the course
proposed in the memorandum as an explanation of the withdrawal of all lists
from all entry on November 7th — a proceeding which should have been
wholly or in part prevented by what I had said. Therefore your statement
m paragraph 3 of the same page, that the action of November 7th was in
strict accord with the policy outlined in the memorandum, is entirely er-
roneous The withdrawal of November 7th was entirely out of accord with
anything I had directed and did not come to my knowledge or to the knowl-
edge of the Geological Survey or to the Forest Service. The first intimation
that I had of the altered situation was when Mr. Mondell introduced his
resolution calling for reports of all the withdrawals. This developed the
surprising and unexpected fact that all the lands were withdrawn from all
disposal. A very dangerous situation had thereby been created by a mistake in
the Department of the Interior. I corrected it by my letter which called
forth the reply of December 17th. The argument on pages 1 1 and 12 of your
letter seems to me entirely unsound. Very truly yours

569

42 2 0, • TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 2 6, 1907

My dear Mr. Secretary: On January 19th the Attorney General wrote me
that, having carefully considered the report of Messrs. Purdy and Cooley as
to the case of United States District Attorney Burke, of Wyoming, brought
up in your letter of November 30th, last, he felt that in view of the report
Mr. Burke’s reappointment had become impossible, he adding, “it does not
seem to me that his removal is demanded in the public interest. His term ex-
pires to-morrow, and I do not think there is any reason why he should not
be left temporarily in charge of his office until his successor has been se-
lected. * * * I think it would be advisable to call the attention of the Sena-
tors from his State to the fact that he could not be reappointed by reason, not
of any moral delinquency, but because he evidently has not been in hearty,
zealous sympathy with the enforcement of the laws against parties guilty of
illegal enclosure of public lands.”

I agreed with the Attorney General, and notified the Senators accord-
ingly. I have just received from Assistant to the Attorney General Purdy
the letter of January 25th which I herewith forward to you. I have gone
over it with the Attorney General and agree with him as to the proper course
to be followed, in view of what it discloses. Mr. Bonaparte feels, as of course
I do, that there has been a complete breakdown on the part of the agents of
the Interior Department in this matter, so far as making any case against
Senator Warren is concerned. The showing is particularly bad for Linnen.
I regard the case as much graver against him than it is against District At-
torney Burke. It appears from Mr Purdy’s report that his case has been pre-
pared in the loosest and most inaccurate manner, and that his exhibits them-
selves do not substantiate what he alleges. The Special Agent in his report to
you stated that the Warren Live Stock Company had 46,000 acres of Gov-
ernment lands unlawfully and illegally enclosed in Wyoming and 1100
acres similarly enclosed in Colorado. The Attorney General reports that an
examination of his report and the exhibits shows that as to the first allegation
33,000 of the 46,000 acres were in truth and in fact not enclosed but open
to the general public, and that as to the remaining 13,000 acres the fences
complained of are in all probability not the fences of the Warren Live Stock
Company, or of any of its officers and agents, and that as regards the en-
closure in Colorado it appears that in all probability the fence complained
of is the fence of some other person or persons.

On page 9 of his report Mr. Purdy explains that the report of the special
agent is to a certain extent “materially discredited” by his (the special
agent’s) own statements, which show that either he or Mr. Hintze has
been guilty of grave mistakes; while two of the exhibits, A and B, mate-
rially contradict one another, and according to Mr. Linnen’s oral state-
ment to Mr. Purdy, neither of these was correct. Mr. Purdy further

5 70

reports that he desires to call attention to the fact that Special Agent
Linnen charges generally that acts of violence have been committed by
the agents and employees of the Warren Live Stock Company for the
purpose of frightening off and intimidating settlers, but that the allegations
are general and not specific, so that as regards this charge there is nothing
for him to investigate. He reports, and Mr. Bonaparte agrees with him, that
no suit should be instituted against the Warren Live Stock Company or its
officers or agents, upon the report and accompanying plats, as the same were
submitted by the Interior Department, because they do not contain sufficient
information and data to justify the Department of Justice in directing the
institution of such a suit. Mr. Bonaparte thinks, and to me it is evident that
he is right, that the whole report of Mr. Linnen as submitted to me by you
in your letter of November 30th, and as used by you as the basis of that
letter, is so discredited that no action can be taken upon it, and that there
must be an entirely new examination of the lands in question to determine
whether there has been any illegal action whatever. It is evident that this
examination must be undertaken by some man of a very different type from
Mr. Linnen and his associates I desire that it be undertaken as soon as the
weather conditions in Wyoming will permit. I should hope that this would
be by the 1st of April, but if not, as soon thereafter as possible. Sincerely
yours

42 2 1 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, January 27, 1907

Dear Senator: That was awfully nice; but, mind you, I agree with you.
Foraker ought not to have been called upon to speak; but, as he was called
upon, I do not blame him much for the speech he did make. I was in two
minds what to say in answer; I was inclined to make a Berserker speech my-
self and go over the whole business, and perhaps this would have been better;
but in the few minutes I had to decide I concluded that I would merely
make a flat contradiction of what he had said, point out the fact that I and
not he would pass judgment upon the case, and that I should absolutely dis-
regard anything except my own convictions, and let it go at that. 1 I must
confess that I was extremely pleased to meet Phillips and took a fancy to
him. I thoroly understand your having stood by him. What a trump Lorimer

1 Roosevelt and Fjoraker, at the Gridiron Club dinner on January 26, had exchanged
heated, personal remarks on the Brownsville affair. The President, describing the
Senate’s discussions of Brownsville as “academic,” suggested that Foraker’s motives
were purely political, Foraker, indignant, insisted that his was a moral position
Roosevelt then spoke agam. This time, according to most accounts of the dinner,
Roosevelt, thoroughly angry, declared that only at the White House could the
tioops get justice, only the executive had the power to act. He then departed
abruptly Foraker was not alone in feeling that Roosevelt had been unnecessarily
rude The senator had also, however, been injudiciously disrespectful. See Foraker,
Notes of A Busy Life , II, 249-257.

571

is! Confound it all 1 I wish I could get him on here with Little and one or
two more and have a genuine talk with them, together with you and one
or two others of the elect. 2

And remember that I share exactly your feeling about Foraker. Faithfully
yours

4222 • TO VICTOR HOWARD METCALF Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, January 27, 1907

Dear Secretary Metcalf: I hope we can pass the navy bills thru the House
this year; and, whether Hale says he is opposed to them or not, do make the
stiffest kind of a fight to put them thru the Senate. I will write again to the
Senate Committee if you want, or, better still, you shall write, as I have
written already. Fight to the last gasp without any compromise. We want
two battleships without fail; and we want them this session without fail. We
want the personnel bill without fail. 1 Push it thru if you possibly can I do
not think we can afford to yield to Mr. Hale. The more we yield the more
he demands, and our one chance with him is to put up a stiff fight and get
our friends to stand up to the punishment. Hale is a very influential man,
but he often refuses to stand the gaff in a fight. I think the personnel bill is
of vital importance, and we ought not to weaken in any way in the effort
to get it thru this session. My own view is that m view of the administra-
tion’s attitude it was absolutely proper for the line officers to do everything
that they did. They were backing up the administration. Sincerely yours

4223 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSCVelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 28, 1907

Dear Will : I have your letter of the 28th. 1 I do not think it would be well
to send for Oliver. If he, after the experience he has had, fails to show that

“David Graham Phillips, Beveridge’s roommate at DePauw, George H. Lonmer,
and Arthur W. Little, editor of Pearson’s Magazine , were close friends of Beveridge

1 While providing for the two battleships, Congress took no action on the personnel
bill. It authorized the most modern machines of naval warfare, but at the same time
left the administration and operation of these to an organization still rigged to the
needs of a sailing-ship navy

x Taft had written about the bids for the construction of the. Panama Canal which
were opened on January 12 (see No. 4003, note 4) Only two of the four bids, that
of William J Oliver for 675 per cent of the cost and the MacArthur-Gillespie con-
tracting syndicate for 12 per cent, were “worthy of consideration” Roosevelt, after
conferring with Root, Taft, and Shonts, decided that the MacArthur bid was too
high and that Oliver’s financial backing was inadequate He, therefore, considered
rejecting all bids and issuing a new invitation. Such a decision was m fact announced
m the Washington papers on January 25. On the twenty-seventh, however, Roose-
velt agreed to allow Oliver ten days to form a new organization that would meet
all the government’s requirements Stevens immediately objected to a reconsideration

572

he can meet all our requirements, my idea is that he should be rejected out
of hand; for that fact alone would prove his utter unfitness to undertake the
work. It is not our business thru Treat to help the Pierces help Oliver make
good his bid. 2 We have gone very far indeed in permitting Oliver to make
good, and my idea now is that we should not give him any advice or the
slightest assistance, because if he needs either it shows he is not the man to
do the job. If he does not appear with two contractors admirably fitted to
do the very work we need, and with the $5,000,000 secured exactly as well
as the other crowd have secured their $5,000,000, then he should be rejected
out of hand. In such a case we may reject the other bid and have Stevens do
the work. Pearl Wight’s letter, winch I have sent you, impresses me a good
deal, and I would be willing to stand upon it if there is any need of it. Don’t
say a word to Oliver beyond what we have already said.

I return herewith Oliver’s letter to Rogers. 3 Sincerely yours

4224 • TO WILLIAM CRARY BROWNELL Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 29, 1907

My dear Mr. Brownell : 1 Every now and then one suddenly comes across a
sentence which exactly phrases a thought which there has long seemed to
be need of formulating, but as to which the words to express it have been
lacking. In your article on Lowell, which of course I liked all thru (except
that I would put parts of The Biglow Papers higher with reference to the
“Commemoration Ode” than you do), I particularly like your phrase “the
American democratic ideal is Brahmmism in manners and tastes, not m sym-
pathies and ideas.” Abraham Lincoln’s democracy was so essential and virile
that it would not have lost m any way if he had had the manners and tastes
of Lowell. One can like to see the White House restored by McKim, and

of the Oliver bid “Believe mistake” he cabled, “to award Oliver, who is neither by
nature, experience or achievements the man, and I strongly object. Award allowing
him to change associations m effect allows new bid ” The Oliver bid, he added, is
“simply a one man proposition,” and therefore defeats the “great object” of the con-
tract plan which was to obtain a large number of experienced men for each type of
work. When Stevens was informed of the contractors who were to make up Oliver’s
new company, he intensified his protests, see No. 4235.

2 Treat was probably Charles Payson Treat, railroad builder, who with Amcito
Garcia Menocal began construction on the Nicaraguan canal m 1890 and who later
built the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad m Maine. George Pierce and Company, of
Frankfort, Maine, was one of the four contracting firms to bid for the canal con-
tract. John Pierce became a member of Oliver’s reorgamzed company, see No 4235
6 Richard R Rogeis, railroad lawyer, at this time general counsel for the Isthmian
Canal Commission.

1 William Crary Brownell had just published his critical essay on Lowell m the

February 1907 issue of Scribner's Magazine. The essay was the second of a series on
Cooper, Lowell, Hawthorne, Poe, and Emerson that Scribner's published over a

period of two years.

573

our gold coinage modeled by Saint-Gaudens, without the least abatement
of the feeling of being one of Abraham Lincoln’s plain people and of keenest
sympathy with, admiration for, and desire to represent, them.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

4225 • TO CHARLES STEDMAN HANKS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, January 31, 1907

My dear Mr. Hanks: I am in receipt of your letter of the 29th. I send you
herewith the report of Messrs. Neill and Garfield on the only specific charges
I was able to get Mr. Harriman to make after repeated efforts on my part.
Mr. Starek joins in the report. The charges are completely disproved.

Last winter you came to me on several occasions, sometimes with and
sometimes without Mr. Harriman, assuring me that very grave errors and
shortcomings existed in the work of the Interstate Commerce Commission,
these being due primarily to the work of its statistician, Mr. Adams. The
allegations made were so grave that I had both of you meet certain members
of the Commission, on which occasion you stated that you would be able to
put the Commission in possession of information which would practically
revolutionize much of the work they were doing, if you were given the
chance to have access to their books. The Commission, at my request, gave
you such access. You were engaged in the researches last spring. When I
returned to Washington last fall I heard from both Mr. Harriman and you
on different occasions that you had found errors of the gravest and grossest
character in the work of the statistician — errors which completely nullified
and rendered valueless the work of the whole Commission. The charges you
had made and were then making were of so grave a character that I did not
feel justified in failing to give you every opportunity to substantiate them;
for of course there was nothing more important than to find out whether or
not the work of the Interstate Commerce Commission was accurate and
trustworthy. I endeavored to have Mr. Harriman state to me definitely what
his charges were. You admitted that your only knowledge of the matter
was from him I found it almost impossible to pin him down to any definite
statement; and finally, in view of the repeated statements of both you and
himself that only experts could go into the matter, I appointed Mr. O. P.
Austin 1 to look into the charges. He reported to me that after careful exam-
ination of the charges as presented in the paper of Mr. Harriman, and of the
reply of Professor Adams, he believed the charges were without foundation.
You and Mr. Harriman insisted that Mr. Austin had erred, and you yourself

1 Oscar Phelps Austin, a statistician who became Chief of the Bureau of Statistics
in the Treasury Department and statistician for the National City Bank of New
York. He modified these professional rigors with excursions into the realms of
newspaper reporting and juvenile fiction

574

s ugg este d that I should have Mr. Neill and one or more bank examiners ex-
amine your charges. I summoned Mr. Harriman to meet me with Mr. Neill,
Mr. Garfield and Mr. Adams. I spent an entire evening endeavoring to get
Mr. Harriman to make specific charges, telling him that he had been many
months at work and that it was out of the question for me any longer to
accept general allegations or sweeping accusations without specific state-
ments to back them up. It proved exceedingly difficult to pin him down to
anything specific; but I finally did pin him down to three definite charges
I explained to him repeatedly that he must then and there make any charges
he had to make; that it was impossible to take up the time of officers of the
administration any longer with loose declamation and that I would consider
nothing whatever save what charges he then and there presented; that I
would have them tested by a commission consisting of Mr. Garfield, Mr
Neill, and a Mr. Starek, one of the best bank examiners in the Government
service. The examination has been made and the charges of Mr. Harriman
are found to be without any foundation whatever. Under the circumstances
it would be simply folly for me to pay any further heed to any allegations
whatever made in regard to the work of the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion by either Mr, Harriman or you. The incident is closed and I shall for-
ward a copy of this letter to the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission. Very truly yours

4226 * TO WILLIAM EDWARD DODD Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, January 31, 1907

My dear Mr. Dodd : 1 While not the exact language, that quotation gives the
substance of what I said, and I stand absolutely by it. There are plenty of
very wealthy men who think that if they can get rid of me and of my ideas,
their troubles in this country are over. Some of them would now welcome
hard times or a panic, because they believe that I would be credited with
what had occurred and there then would consequently be a reaction which
would put in some man of what they regard as a safe type. It is well for the
men who believe this to realize that they would run the risk, in such event,
of so violent a counterreaction as to sweep in a man of the real radical type
— a man who would pursue legislation in a vindictive spirit. I thank you
most cordially for your letter. Sincerely yours

1 William Edward Dodd, American historian, at this time a professor at Randolph-
Macon College, later at the University of Chicago A careful scholar and a gifted
teacher, he wrote several excellent biographies, and edited, with Ray Stannard
Baker, the public papers of Woodrow Wilson There was a streak of poetry m his
prose and a fond reverence in his treatment of the past of his native South — the past
with which he was, as an historian, preoccupied From 1933 to 1937 he served as
ambassador to Germany.

575

4227 * T0 mrs. E > H * merrell Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, January 31, 1907

Afy dear Mrs . Merrell : 1 Mrs. Roosevelt has shown me your letter of the
27th. I hardly know how to advise you, and can do little more than to wish
you all success in your work. Mrs. Roosevelt and I feel, as you know, that
there is not any association more deserving of our sympathy and support
than yours.

For one of your topics, how would it do to speak of the place of the
father in the home? Now and then people forget that exactly as the mother
must help the breadwinner by being a good housewife, so the father in his
turn, if he is worth his salt, must in every way back up the mother in help-
ing bring up the children. After all, the prime duties are elemental, and no
amount of cultivation, no amount of business force and sagacity, will make
the average man a good citizen unless that average man is a good husband
and father, and unless he is a successful breadwinner, is tender and consid-
erate with his wife, and both loving and wise (for to be loving and weak and
foolish is utterly ruinous) in dealing with the children. I think it a crime for
the woman to shirk her primary duties, to shrink from being a good wife
and mother. Of course, the woman should have the same right as the man to
train her mind, to better herself, and occasionally a woman can, and ought to,
follow some especial vocation m addition to (nevei in substitution for) her
home work But just as the highest work for the normal man is work for his
wife and children, so the highest work for the normal woman is the work of
the home — where, Heaven knows, the work is ample enough. But I also
feel she can do the best work m her home if she has healthy outside interests
and occupations in addition, and I most firmly believe that she cannot do her
full duty by her husband if she occupies a merely servile attitude toward
him or submits to ill-treatment, and that she is quite as bad a mother if weak
and foolish as if hard and unloving. Sincerely yours

4228 * TO ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MsS .

Washington, February i, 1907

My dear Mr . Secretary: In accordance with our conversation of this morn-
ing I write you direct in response to your letter of January 29th, you to
make whatever use you choose of this letter.

I heartily sympathize with your view as to the great desirability of the
legislation of Congress, and the action of the Department of the Interior
under such legislation, ever since the act of March 3, 1901; that is, with the
theory that the Indians are wards of the Nation, and that the granting of
political emancipation to the members of the Five Civilized Tribes did not
absolutely discharge them from wardship, but left undisturbed the national

1 Mrs E H. Merrell, president, New York State Assembly of Mothers.

576

guardianship in respect to the rights of property. I am certain that it would
be a calamity to the Indians if the theory upon which both the Congress and
the administration have consistently acted now for nearly six years, was
overthrown and if it was now contended that the Act of March 3, 1901, had
an effect which, if foreseen, would certainly have led to the refusal to enact
it. I am not competent to express an opinion upon the law of the matter; but
it seems to me that the memorandum you enclose from the law division of
your Department states the case correctly In any event, to take the oppo-
site view from that contained in this memorandum and in your letter would
be productive, m my judgment, of such an enormous amount of mischief
to the Indians that we would not be warranted m accepting it save by the
decree of the highest court m the land.

In the next place, as to the segregated coal and asphalt lands. Here I feel
that the suggestion made by Commissioner Leupp of converting this segre-
gated coal land property into a corporation in the interest of the Indians
would be the one which it would be best to adopt. I earnestly hope that
this plan will be adopted. In any event, I should feel it in the gravest degree
improper to insist upon an outright sale under the direction of the Secretary
of the Interior to the highest bidder in such tracts as the purchaser might
desire, or in any other way to provide for such an alienation of the under-
lying minerals. I have no objection to the sale of the surface lands, and m
fact I should welcome such sale; for I agree heartily m the views of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs that it is not for the advantage of the Indian
to retain more land than he can himself make use of, especially where, as in
this case, by the sale of the surface a good class of agricultural workers will
be brought m with whom it would be an advantage to him to be brought m
contact, but the right to the surface lands should be sharply differentiated
from the right to the underlying minerals.

As to removal of restrictions; here I feel that not only should homesteads
be kept inalienable to allottees of Indian blood, but that minors and incom-
petents should be scrupulously protected, and that the various tribes having
no homestead under existing law should also have provision made for them.
What I have said above as to the desirability of selling the surplus land ap-
plies here, of course.

Oil and gas. I most emphatically believe that we should not permit the
lands containing oil and gas to be alienated under conditions which would
m effect mean the building up of a great monopoly in oil and the reversal of
the program wisely entered into recently by the Department to stimulate an
increase m the competitive pipeline service. I do not feel that we can afford
to aid in the acquisition of property of this kind by private parties who, as
experience has shown, may use the power thus acquired over necessaries of
consumption in a tyrannical manner. I feel that on behalf of the Indians the
Government should retain the fee in trust for the Indian — or, if the land is
held to belong to the Indian, that the fee should be left with the Indian and

577

he be restricted from alienating it but permitted to lease the rights to take
the oil and gas, under restrictions prescribed by the Government, that is by
the Interior Department. I feel that this is in the interest of the Indians them-
selves. I feel that it is also in the interest of all the people of the United
States and particularly of the people in the neighborhood of these oil fields;
and it is consistent with the policy which I so earnestly hope to see the
United States Government adopt, in regard to leasing, instead of departing
with the fee of, the coal and other minerals in the remaining public lands.

Withdrawal of lands from allotment. Here it is only necessary for me to
say that I approve of the action you took with the object of preserving to
the Indians and the country at large the rapidly disappearing timber. I feel
that the Department had the right to make the withdrawal, and that it would
have been a dereliction in duty for it not to have acted as it did act. Very
truly yours

4229 • TO STEPHEN BENTON ELKINS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 2, 1907

My dear Senator: I have your note of the 31st. I think that the task of han-
dling that canal should be given to the biggest man we can get. So far,
Stevens has done the work as no army engineer could have done it. But the
most important work is probably now done, until we come to the actual
construction of the Gatun dam. Then, if it becomes necessary, we can use
the army engineers. Sincerely yours

4230 • TO FLORENCE LOCKWOOD LA FARGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, February 2, 1907

Dear Florence . I am in receipt of your letter of the 31st and enclosure, and
shall take that matter up with Merriam at once. It was a characteristic act
of Wadsworth to do this bit of dirty work as his final leave-taking in Con-
gress. 1 He has all the characteristics of a cheap demagog, and how he could
have gotten them is to me inexplicable. Ever yours

[. Handwritten ] Tell Dutcher 2 to make his Audubon societies everywhere
get to work; get the papers interested, and send the petitions to all their Sen-
ators. Tell him that this will be practical.

1 Wadsworth had omitted the appropriation for C. Hart Merriam’s Bureau of
Biological Survey from the Agricultural Appropriation Bill, claiming that the
bureau merely duplicated the work of the Smithsonian Institution for the preserva-
tion of North American birds. An amendment to reinsert this appropriation of
$52,000 was later adopted by the House.

“William Dutcher, ornithologist, president of the National Association of Audubon
Societies.

578

4231 • TO GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 4, 1907

My dear Trevelyan: Perhaps you remember that in my last letter I spoke of
some of the troubles we had had with Governor Swettenham. 1 In view of the
affair at Kingston, you may possibly be interested in the enclosed report of
Admiral Davis with several appendices. I wish you would look at Father
Gleeson’s two letters and that of Surgeon Ames, as well as the correspond-
ence from the Jamaica people themselves. If you think it would be of inter-
est you might show the papers to Sir Edward Grey and your Home Secre-
tary. I have not allowed them to be made public here because I did not think
there was any object to be attained, but I am rather inclined to feel that
your people ought to have the chance to look at them, if they so desire,
simply for their own information and without having them brought before
them in any formal way.

Of course Swettenham is simply what scientists call a “sport,” a lusus
naturae. We have his type by the dozen. I had to turn out our Minister to
Venezuela, a man named Bowen, a couple of years ago, for being guilty of
conduct that I think was worse than Swettenham’s. Among the people he
insulted was your former Ambassador, Herbert — by the way, one of the
sweetest and most attractive men I have ever met. You are no more respon-
sible for Swettenham than I am responsible for Mr., or rather Mrs., Storer —
the late lamented Ambassador and Ambassadress at Vienna. I hope your peo-
ple understand that as far as we were concerned the Swettenham business
caused us nothing but amusement, and I send you these papers merely be-
cause under like circumstances I should like to know in an unofficial way the
truth about any of our own people in similar position.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

4232 * TO WILLIAM LAWRENCE Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 6, 1907

My dear Bishop: You have told me just what I wish, and I thank you for it.
Mrs. Roosevelt will go straight thru to Groton, so she will not be able to
accept your very kind invitation. Now, I am going to ask a favor in response

1 Governor Alexander Swettenham of Jamaica, B W I., had wounded American
pride After an earthquake at Kingston, Admiral Davis, in command of a naval relief
unit, on January 17 sent troops ashore to guard the United States consulate and
assist the city’s inhabitants Swettenham, the next day, apparently piqued at a
misunderstanding over the naval salute to the colony’s flag, requested Davis to recall
the troops. The recent robbery of a New York City home, the governor com-
mented, “w’ould not have justified a British admiral m landing an armed party. to
assist the New York police.” Davis at once complied, but he felt insulted, a feeling
the American press shared The British Foreign Office at first suggested that Swet-
tenham must have been a victim of mental exhaustion. Shortly thereafter, however,
the Foreign Office arranged his apology and resignation

579

to your very kind letter. Would you let me go to your house, say at 5 o’clock
on the afternoon of Saturday, and get a cup of tea, and dress^ It will give me
a chance to catch a glimpse of you.

Do you remember my telling you how utterly foolish I thought Presi-
dent Eliot’s estimate of public men, instancing his regard for Congressman
McCall? Congressman McCall and Olney in a spirit of folly so gratuitous
that it looks like deliberate mischief-making, are now adding to the difficul-
ties of the Nation in coming to a peaceful solution of the Japanese imbro-
glio. 1 Olney, I suppose, is simply concerned in embarrassing the administra-
tion, McCall’s chief motive is not to embarrass the administration, but to
gain any little advertising for himself, without the slightest regard as to
whether it is of serious damage to the Nation or not; and this is the man
whom President Eliot backs up. Faithfully yours

4233 • TO CYRUS ADAMS SULLOWAY Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 6, 1907

My dear Mr. Sulloway Now that I have signed that general pension bill,
don’t you think we can call a complete halt to these special pension bills^ 5
It seems to me that we are passing them in altogether too great number. I
do not feel like signing any more after the enormous batch which I am
about to sign today — over four hundred in number. 2 * * I have the greatest
sympathy for the old soldier and cordially agree in the policy of a general
pension for all old soldiers now, forty-two years after the war; but I do not
think there is any warrant for our continuing to pass special bills after the
signing of this general bill I do not think that such action does any real good
from any standpoint It discriminates against men as worthy as those who
get the pensions. If I am m error, I would like you to tell me why. Won’t
you come up and go over the matter with me in person^ I shall of course
reserve judgment until after our discussion. Sincerely yours

1 Olney and McCall opposed the amendment to the immigration bill which em-
powered the President to protect “labor conditions” by denying entry to foreigners
who held passports to American insular possessions or to foreign countries. This
was an essential element m the “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” permitting, as it did,
Japanese immigration to Hawaii, where labor was short, while preventing coolie
immigration to Calif orma Olney, characteristically legalistic, maintained that the
Japanese immigration question should be settled only by explicit treaty provisions
and court rulings. McCall, one of the few Republicans who voted against the amend-
ment, contended that it constituted an unwarranted extension of the executive power

1 Cyrus A. Sulloway was chairman of the Committee on Invalid Pensions.

2 Roosevelt had just signed the McCumber Act. This measure, sponsored by the
Grand Army of the Republic, provided pensions to veterans regardless of disability

Any soldier who served for more than ninety days m the Mexican or Civil War

was now eligible for twelve dollars a month on reaching the age of sixty-two,

fifteen dollars a month at sixty-five, and seventy dollars after seventy-five.

580

4234 * TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, February 6, 1907

My dear Mr. Speaker: What is going to be done about the bill pending to
prevent the excessive hours of railroad employees? As you know, this bill
became part of our program last year on my initiative, but with the cordial
assent of all people engaged in the campaign. If it is not past we will and
ought to be charged with a breach of faith. It is not a question now as to the
propriety of the bill. Personally, I am convinced that it is absolutely proper,
but the question about that of course should have come up before we pledged
ourselves to it. It was not in any sense a perfunctory pledge on our part. My
letter on this matter was used again and again to offset Gompers’ fight on the
injunction matter. I feel that we cannot leave the bill unpast without grave
dereliction of duty and of honor. I know that you favor the bill, but I write
to find out where the hitch is and what I should do. Of course I shall send in
a message, and the very strongest message I can pen, if there is any need of
it; but I do not want to do it if we can get the bill without it. Won’t you let
me know about this^ Sincerely yours

4235 • TO JOHN FRANK STEVENS Goethals MSS .

Telegram Washington, February 7, 1907

Oliver makes good original bid. 1 Financial and legal requirements met satis-
factorily. Associates with himself, John B. McDonald, builder of New York
subway; John Pierce of Maine, one of the largest masonry contractors in
United States, with large experience in dock and crushed stone work; Patrick
T. Walsh, Iowa, practical steam-shovel man, highly recommended from all
sources, Patrick J. Brennan, Washington, concrete and general construction
experience. William H. Sayre, of International Dredging Company, New

1 In the ten-day period granted him by Roosevelt to revise his financial arrange-
ments, Oliver had formed a completely new organization. The new company, the
Panama Construction Company, was primarily financed by R. A. C. Smith, a New
York “traction magnate,” and Frederick Stevens, president of the Commercial Bank
of Washington and commissioner of public works of New York State These two
men, the papers reported, dictated the appointment of John B McDonald as
executive head of Oliver’s new company, even though he, McDonald, had also
just been elected vice-pi esident of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company.

John Frank Stevens, the chief engineer of the canal, distrusted the New York
traction group that was apparently behind the new company organized by Oliver.
He also was skeptical of the competence of the contractors selected by Oliver, who
had been chosen, Stevens believed, only to conform with the technical requirements
of the invitation. These reservations Stevens communicated to Roosevelt, who finally
on February 26 decided to reject all bids, including Oliver’s, that had been offered
under the invitation of October 12, 1906 (see No 4003, note 4)

The revelation, made m 1907 by the Public Service Commission of New York,
of the financial irresponsibility of the officers of the Interborough Rapid Transit
Company who had backed Oliver, indicates the soundness of Roosevelt’s decision
and of Stevens’ suspicions.

581

York, and John H. Gerrish of Eastern Dredging Company, Boston dredgers;
R. A. C. Smith, New York, general contractor; also Robert Russell, Virginia,
steam-shovel man and past associate Oliver. Smith, chairman, McDonald
president, Oliver vice-president, new company. Advise promptly your
knowledge of these people.

It seems to me very farfetched to think that McDonald will be influenced
by Parsons or anyone else to oppose project into which he has put his money
and on the success of which he is staking Iris reputation as president of the
company. I am greatly astonished at your concluding sentence in your
telegram to Taft and wholly fail to understand how. you can say that con-
tract matter is entirely wrong inasmuch as it was entered into on your
initiative. You say the proposition is different from your recommendation of
July 27th. 2 As a matter of fact it is identical with the proposition of Decem-
ber nth, this proposition being drawn up in my presence to meet exactly
your views, you, Shonts, Root, Taft and Rogers being present, the contract
in its final form having your explicit approval. We refused to consider any
bid until it complied with the terms winch were thus at your initiative laid
down. I would not be willing now to alter this policy entered into with such
deliberation save for grave reasons which can be publicly stated and verified.
I need your assistance in carrying the policy thru and I wish full comment
from you on the above provisions of the bid and the personnel of the bidders
so far as your knowledge goes.

4236 • TO EUGENE HALE Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, February 8, 1907

My dear Senator Hale: Can you come in tomorrow (Saturday) morning?
For reasons which it ought not to be necessary for me to mention even in
this purely private and confidential letter, I consider it in the highest degree
dangerous to the national honor and interest to fail to provide at once for
the most ample supply of reserve ammunition for the navy. For some years
we have repeatedly asked the Committees of the two Houses to give us this
ample reserve. If war should at any time come on with any Power, the fail-
ure already to have provided such reserve may be calamitous to a degree. At
least there should not be another minute’s delay in starting to prepare it. In
my judgment there is no justification for failure to provide at least five

“Stevens replied that his recommendations of July 27, 1906 (see No. 4003, note 4)
differed from the final invitation in the financial requirements, methods of payment,
and control of labor. His objections to the changes made in the invitation at the
December 12 conference, he maintained, had been overruled, and the “belief I gave
first hand approval only justifiable by my silence thereafter ” Furthermore, Stevens
stressed that his original plan had not contemplated competitive bidding for the
contracts but instead had suggested the selection by the government of contractors
who would then become “simply agents of the commission.”

582

million dollars for immediately starting to provide for such reserve. 1 Sin-
cerely yours

4237 • TO FRANCIS EMROY WARREN Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 11, 1907

My dear Senator Warren: In accordance with our recent conversation, I am
very glad to send you this short statement of my position regarding Govern-
ment control of the range.

I am fully in accord with your view that the local control of the range
should be in the hands of western men familiar with stock raising, and I
believe m full local participation in the management of the range. Of course
you must not divide responsibility to a point where you can hold no one
responsible, but co-operation between the stockmen and the Government
officers is absolutely essential.

The grazing fee should be a small one, and especially so at first. I am not
anxious that the Government should get a net revenue from grazing on the
public range, but only enough to pay for administration and improvement,
and any surplus might well go to the States and Territories in which the fees
are collected.

As soon as a bill for range control is past, it goes without saying that such
control should not be taken hurriedly, but gradually, as grazing districts can
be organized. There is one prime essential m this policy of range control —
the homesteader must be protected in his right to create a home for his
family, and he must have whatever range rights are necessary for that pur-
pose.

At present it is unlawful to fence the public domain. All fences unlaw-
fully maintained will have to be taken down. Unless Congress takes action
to legalize reasonable and necessary fencing thru Government control of
the range, there will be a very serious loss to stockmen thruout the West,
whose business in very many cases cannot be conducted without fencing, and
this loss will often fall hardest on the small man.

I cannot consent to a clause continuing for a year, or for any length of
time, the present illegal fencing. The utmost I will consent to, so far as my
power extends m the matter of legislation, is to continue such fences as in
my judgment it is right and proper for me to continue. My first care is for
the homesteader and the small stockman. The opposition we have to our
proposal now comes primarily from the big men who graze wandering flocks
of sheep, and who do not promote the real settlement of the country. These
are the men whose interests are diametrically hostile to those of the home-
makers, who wish to eat out and destroy the country where he desires per-
manently to live, and who, when they have thus ruined the land of the

1 Hale’s Committee on Naval Affairs raised the current appropriation for reserve

ammunition from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000

583

homesteader and small stockman, move elsewhere to repeat the process of dev-
astation. Many of the sheepmen who are permanent dwellers in the land
sympathize with our movement. Others, unfortunately, sympathize with their
nomadic brothers the ultimate result of whose actions is to destroy the coun-
try. It must be distinctly understood that the opposition to the proposed
measure for Government control is opposition aimed at the interests of the
home-maker, of the homesteader, of the small stockman, of the large stock-
man who desires that the country shall become better and not worse; and
that it is m the interest only of those who think that by continuing the
present system they will be able to monopolize an improper portion of the
public domain, and who are quite indifferent as to whether in the long run
they destroy it. Sincerely yours

4238 * TO HENRY LEE HIGGINSON Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, February 1 r, 1907

My dear Colonel Higgmson: You touch on a most difficult subject. I wish
you would look at the opening paragraphs in the last Review of Reviews and
I think you will see what the average sensible outsider feels in regard to the
railroads. 1 The present unsatisfactory condition m railroad affairs is due
ninety-five per cent to the misconduct, the shortsightedness, and the folly of
the big railroad men themselves. Unquestionably there is loose demagogic
attack upon them m some of the States, but not one particle of harm has come
to them by Federal action; on the contrary, merely good 2 I wish very much
that our laws could be strengthened, and I think that the worst thing that could
be done for the railroads would be an announcement that for two or three
years the Federal Government would keep its hands off of them. It would
result in a tidal wave of violent State action against them thruout three-
fourths of this country. I am astonished at the curious shortsightedness of the
railroad people, a shortsightedness which, thanks to their own action, extends
to would-be investors. Legislation such as I have proposed, or whatever legis-

1 “The complete breaking down of efficiency m the actual business of transporta-
tion, ” “the inability of the great railroad managers to obtain the money they need
to make absolutely necessary improvements,” the collaboration of railroad managers
in. unfair trade practices, the violation by railroads of antitrust laws, and the pre-
occupation of railroad directors with “building up their private fortunes,” the
magazine asserted, had “exasperated” the American people If these conditions were
not remedied, Americans might become “prepared to throw the burden of railroad
ownership and administration upon the United States Government.” — The Ameri-
can Monthly Review of Reviews, 35 1 31-132 (February 1907).
disagreeing with this statement, C. E. Perkins, then, like Roosevelt, corresponding
on railroads with Higgmson, commented “There is nothing in any state that I know
of, any worse than the Interstate Commerce Law and its various amendments, giving
more power to half a dozen lawyeis than is possessed by the Czar of Russia . . —

Perkins to Higgmson, March 25, 1907, printed in Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of
Henry Lee Higgmson (Boston, 1921), p 437

584

lation in the future I shall propose, will be in the interest of honest investors
and to protect the public and the investors against dishonest action

I may incidentally say that I think that no possible action on railroads
would have as disturbing effect upon business as action on the tariff at this
time. I earnestly and cordially agree with you on the need of currency legis-
lation, and have been doing all I can for it; but the big financial men of the
country, instead of trying to get sound currency legislation, seem to pass
their time in lamenting, as Wall Street laments, our action about the railroads.

My dear Colonel, I do not like to disagree with you, but when you
speak of the analogy of our dealings with the Southern States and express
your approval of Rhodes’ last two volumes, I must say that these two vol-
umes of his, in sharp contrast with his earlier volumes, are exceedingly foolish
and completely distort the facts. The policy of “trusting the South” at that
time, which you say ought to have been tried, was tried by Andrew John-
son. It produced peonage clauses in the constitutions and laws of the Southern
States. It produced the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by these
States. If persisted in it would have produced the reintroduction of slavery,
under a slightly modified form, in the South. The North erred in its recon-
struction action, but the prime error was that of the South. The analogy is
fairly good with the railroad situation — except as to the aftereffects

I wish I could have the chance of seeing you in person. Sincerely yours

4239 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 12, 1907

Dear Will: Please read the enclosed letter from Stevens and return it to me 1
There is of course no question that Stevens must get out at once — whether
before your visit to Panama is a detail which I need not at the moment con-
sider. If he should now alter his mind, as he has so frequently altered it m
the past, and wish to stay, I should not consider it for a moment in view of
the tone of his letter. I shall want to go over with you very carefully the
answer I should make. My present impression is that we should avoid having
any row with him at all and simply make it a question of meeting his wishes,
which are also ours, and remodeling of the Commission accordingly. Please
come over in the morning and see me about it. Faithfully yours

a Stevens had written a long, ill-tempered letter saying that he was fed up with his
work and was anxious to leave the Isthmus. After describing how he had been
constantly hampered by Congress, the Administration, and the commission, he
pointed out that he was sacrificing more than $100,000 a year for the dubious honor
of constructing the canal Therefore, he concluded, “if in the next two or three
months, you can see your way clear to let me follow other lines much more agree-
able to me, I shall be your debtor” For Stevens’ motives m writing this letter, see
Appendix I and No 4282, for Roosevelt’s reply to Stevens, see No 4242.

585

424° ' T0 ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 12, 1907

Sir: Since there is some uncertainty concerning the meaning of the order of
January 25, relating to issuance of evidence of title under the public land
laws, I reissue the order in the following more specific form*

To facilitate the final disposition of proper applications for patent and to
prevent the fraud now practiced in the acquisition of public lands of the
United States, I have to direct that hereafter no final certificate, patent, or
other evidence of title shall be issued until an officer authorized to make field
examination has made such examination or has obtained information of
equivalent value. This order, however, shall not be taken to affect or modify
the following-

1. Final five-year homestead entries heretofore made where the proof is
satisfactory and complete.

2. Final certificate and receipts in final five-year homestead proofs here-
tofore or hereafter made when the proof is satisfactory and complete.

3. Homestead entries commuted on ceded Indian lands in which annual
payments are required.

4. Entries where claimant’s compliance with law has been established by
contest or other regular adverse proceedings.

5. Entries confirmed which may have been confirmed by virtue of any
act of Congress.

6. Selections and entries in which no residence or improvement is re-
quired by law when the lands embraced therein are situated in nonmineral
localities, as shown by the records of the Geological Survey, or when their
character has been fixt by investigation and classification made in accordance
with law.

7. Reissuance of patents because of some clerical error occurring m
patents heretofore issued.

8 Military bounty land warrants and other similar warrants when the
requisite proof has been made.

This order is to replace my order of January 25, 1907.

4241 • to winston churchill Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 13, 1907

My dear Churchill: I am in receipt of your letter of the 1 ith instant. On Mon-
day, the nth, I sent Hoitt’s name to the Senate, and yesterday, the 12th
instant, his nomination was confirmed. 1 All I can do now is to keep a sharp
lookout to see that he does nothing out of the way. Please procure me some

1 The Senate had confirmed Charles W. Hoitt as United States Attorney for the
District of New Hampshire.

586

definite information as to your assertion that he is a willing tool of the Boston
and Maine railroad machine and has no reputation as a lawyer.

Now, one word as to what you say about cleamng out the nest of Federal
officials with poor records. I will act at once against any man on any definite
proof being given; but remember that I must have proof, and remember that
in appointments I must m each State act in conjunction with the Senators.
Now and then for exceptional places I can get men appointed to whom the
Senators object, or at least as to whom they are indifferent. But these cases
are exceptional. Normally my course of action must be the one which, as
a matter of fact, I have always followed. I have refused to appoint any man
who I think is unfit. I consult no man as to a public official in office who I
have come to the conclusion is unfit. In exceptional cases, such as appoint-
ments here at Washington where I have and ought to have personal knowl-
edge, I take the initiative myself. But as regards the immense majority of
local officials it is out of the question for me to have such personal knowl-
edge. In such cases I accept the Senators’ recommendations, provided they
recommend decent men. This is not a case of personal peculiarity on my
part or of usurpation of authority on theirs. It is a compliance not merely
with the letter but with the spirit of Article 2, Section 2, of the Constitution.
Sincerely yours

4242 • TO JOHN FRANK STEVENS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 14, 1907

My dear Mr . Stevens. I have received your letter of January 30th. You have
done excellent work on the Isthmus and I am sorry to lose you; but in view
of your attitude towards the work, as exprest in your letter, I agree with
you that it would be better for you to leave the Commission. I accordingly
hereby accept your resignation. 1 At the earliest possible moment I shall send
to the Isthmus some man to take your place — probably an army engineer,
and I of course expect that you will continue to perform your present duties
not only until his arrival but until he has been with you a sufficient time to
become thoroly familiar with the exact condition of the work. Damage
would be done if you left before the man was on the ground and had time
thoroly to familiarize himself with the exact situation so that the work may

1 Stevens’ unexpected and angry letter (see No. 4239 and Appendix I) was a pre-
cipitating factor m Roosevelt’s decision to turn the control or the canal over to the
Army, Only by this means, he felt, could there be assured the continuity of com-
mand that had been disrupted first by the sudden departure of Wallace and now by
Stevens’ request to leave The Army, too, was better equipped to handle the constant
and often irritating congressional relationship. The basic policy change on canal con-
struction was made public on February 26 when the President announced simul-
taneously the resignation of Stevens and the appointment of Major George Wash-
ington Goethals as his successor (see No. 4254) For Stevens’ point of view, see
DuVal, And the Mountains Will Move , ch. xii.

587

continue without a break. Mr. Ripley , 2 whether made chief or not, will
occupy an even higher place than heretofore in connection with the work.

No decision has yet been reached by me in the matter of the acceptance
or rejection of the bids for constructing the canal. When I take them up I
shall carefully go over the whole matter with Mr. Taft and Mr. Root with
a view to the somewhat changed situation created by your resignation. Next
week I shall conclude the interviews we have been holding with the various
bidders. As soon thereafter as possible I shall decide whether to accept one
bid, and if so, which; or whether to reject all the bids and have the work done
direct by the Government.

I need not say that I thoroly sympathize with you in the attacks that have
been made upon you, both by men in public and in private life. These at-
tacks, however, are necessary incidents to the holding of public position —
especially, I may add, to holding the position of President As regards the
interference with you by, as you term them, the “lawmakers,” such Congres-
sional supervision and investigation is a necessary condition of doing any
work of this kind, the money is appropriated by Congress, and Congress
demands full knowledge of the manner in which it is expended; and it is
essential that whoever is trying to perform a great and difficult task for the
country should be patient under such investigation, and should realize that
what seems to him undue interference is usually the performance of a duty
imposed upon Congress by the very fact that it provides the money.

I am also well aware that you could have made more money in private
life than by accepting your present Government post, but this is also a
necessary incident of the highest kind of public service.

I am at a loss to understand your criticism of the Commission. You say
it has never been given a fair trial. Yet you also say that its membership
should act only under the Chairman, who should be given “power of direc-
tion and final approval or veto.” This is precisely the present system.

There is another point in your letter which I do not exactly understand,
that is, where you speak of politics as affecting the work. I have never asked
your politics, and as a matter of fact I do not know whether you are a Demo-
crat or a Republican. Neither do I know the politics of a single one of your
subordinates on the Isthmus, and I assume that you have appointed and dis-
charged them wholly without regard to their political affiliations. As I have
many times said to Mr. Taft and Mr. Shonts, and, I believe, also to you, I
regard the Isthmian Canal as a work emphatically for the entire American
people, to be carried on with an eye single to doing it well and thoroly, and
I feel that the only “politics” connected with it is thus to do it as econom-
ically as is consistent with speed and thoroness. ,

Wishing you well, I am, Sincerely yours

“Joseph Ripley became assistant chief engineer of the canal in 1906 after having
served on the board formed in April 1905 to determine whether the canal was to be
a lock or sea-level type. He resigned after Goethals took charge.

588

4243 * T0 ELI HU ROOT

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, February 15, 1907

Dear Elihu: Don’t you think we ought to communicate with Japan and start
that treaty at once> I don’t want them to begin to shy off because of this
legislation 1 Sincerely yours

4244 • TO HENRY BROWN FLOYD MACFARLAND Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 16, 1907

My dear Mr. Macfarland: Quentin and Archie are much disturbed over a
bill to lengthen the school hours m the District, to which they say the teacher
is also opposed. 1 Do you think you could give me any information about k?
Cannot we let well enough alone^ Sincerely yours

4245 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 16, 1907

Dear Kermit: There has been a great deal of bad weather this week and most
of the time it was cold, with the result that Ethel and the two little boys had
a disappointment. They were to have gone off with Mother Friday for a trip
on the Sylph , to stay until Monday, but the ice is so thick on the river that
the Sylph could not get thru and the trip had to be abandoned. I think Ethel
had a strong feeling that if Captain Bulmer really did his duty he would
chop out a way for the Sylph himself! She and I and Capt. Seth Bullock
have just been on a good ride, the Captain is devoted to you.

I am in the midst of a perfect whirl of work as the end of the session ap-
proaches. I am striving to accomplish what can be accomplished, and have
arranged to take care as well as I can of the Government on the points where
it is now evident that I shall fail to get what I wanted from Congress. Slowly
and with infinite difficulty and frequent setbacks, I am getting both the
Californians and Japan into an attitude that will permit of a solution of our
troubles m that quarter — altho of course the whole business may be upset
before I am able to achieve the result I have in mind.

New difficulties have come up in connection with Panama. The truth is
that I have a great number of tasks to do, and that except m a very few of

1 Root four days later spurred Ambassador Wright to hasten negotiations with
Japan. The political insecurity of the Japanese cabinet, however, and the new anti-
Japanese restrictions passed by the California Legislature m early March, delayed
the completion of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” for five months, see Jessup, Rooty
II, 20 if

x On February 13 the Senate had agreed to an amendment to the District Appropria-
tion Bill increasing the length of the school day by an hour. Strong protests from
Washington teachers and parents induced the conference committee to strike out
the amendment. Macfarland was the president of the Board of Commissioners of the
District of Columbia

589

them, either the best men I can get have weak streaks in them, or the con-
ditions under which I work are so faulty that to accomplish even a moderate
amount of good is exceedingly difficult In other words, the great majority
of the instruments with which I work have each some big flaw. I have to
endeavor to bear down as lightly as possible on the flaw and get the best
results I can in spite of it, and when the instrument finally breaks, grin and
pick up another one, probably no better, and work as long as I can with
it in its turn. Of course under such circumstances, which I suppose are
merely the ordinary circumstances of the world, I always come far short of
accomplishing what I desire, and yet I do in the end accomplish a certain
amount.

I quite agree with you, both about Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court and about Browning. The former was not worth writ-
ing. Mark Twain, tho a real genius, who has done admirable work in his line,
is a man wholly without cultivation and without any real historical knowl-
edge. He is as unfit to write about medieval times as Charles Dickens was to
write his Child’s History of England. Somebody has said of the latter that
it was at least a childish performance, and the same criticism would apply to
this book of Mark Twain’s. There is nothing cheaper than to sneer at and
belittle the great men and great deeds and great thoughts of a bygone time —
unless it is to magnify them and to ascribe preposterous and impossible vir-
tues to the period. As for Browning, most of what he writes is to me wholly
unreadable, but I am very fond indeed of some of his poems, such as “Love
Among the Ruins,” and “ ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’ ” Your
loving father

4246 • to cuno hugo Rudolph Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 16, 1907

My dear Sir: 1 It is with regret that I must refuse your land invitation to be
present and speak at your annual banquet.

I have noted with pleasure the good work which your Association has
done in promoting playgrounds for the National Capital. I am especially
pleased with the prospect of Congress granting this year an appropriation
for the purchase of playground sites. I trust that the bill of Representative
Boutell 2 will also go thru so that you may be able to secure sites in the
various quarters of the city now while open spaces still exist and before the
price upon them becomes prohibitive. The plan of playground development
for the District has been so carefully drawn that I hope it may be carried

1 Cuno Hugo Rudolph, then president of the Washington Playgrounds Association,
had opened the first public playground in Washington in 1901. He later became
president of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 1910-1913,
1921-1924

s Henry Sherman Boutell, Republican congressman from Illinois, 1897-1911, His bill
to increase playground space in Washington was not reported out of committee

590

out substantially as outlined. I regard this as one of the most important steps
toward making Washington the model city which we all feel that the Capital
of this nation should be.

I have been pleased to see also that there is a new interest in play and
playgrounds all over the country, and that many cities that have not pre-
viously taken up the movement m a systematic way have made a beginning
this year The annual meeting of the Playground Association of America in
Chicago, in June, with its attractive play festival and comprehensive study
of play problems, is sure to increase this interest. I trust that all of our larger
municipalities will send representatives to this exhibition to gain inspiration
from tins meeting and to see the magnificent system that Chicago has erected
in their South Park section, one of the most notable civic achievements of
any American city.

The new appreciation of the value of play in the development of children
is shown in many Ways. The physical trainers in all of their recent meetings
have put a new emphasis on the importance of play and are giving a larger
place to it in their work. The Public School Athletic League of New York
has organized athletics along sane and helpful lines for thousands of school chil-
dren, and a number of other cities seem to be about to take up this movement.
There is a general feeling in our schools and colleges also for larger athletic
fields and the participation of a larger proportion of the students in athletic
events. In Germany a large number of games have been put into the school
course as a part of the school system, thus extending the method of the
kindergarten thru the elementary school. In England football and cricket
have been a part of the school course at Eton, Rugby and most of the other
public and preparatory schools for many years. In the private schools of this
country similar to these English schools, such as Lawrenceville, Groton, St.
Paul’s and many others, play is also provided for in the curriculum. I hope
that soon all of our public schools will provide, m connection with the school
buildings and during school hours, the place and time for the recreation as
well as study of the children. Play is at present almost the only method of
physical development for city children, and we must provide facilities for it
if we would have the children strong and law-abiding. We have raised the
age at which the child may go to work and increased the number of school
years. These changes involve increased expense for parents with decreased
return from the child If we do not allow the children to work we must
provide some other place than the streets for their leisure time. If we are to
require the parents to rear the children at increased expense for the service
of the state, practically without return, the state should make the care of
children as easy and pleasant as possible. If we would have our citizens con-
tented and law-abiding, we must not sow the seed of discontent in childhood
by denying children their birthright of play.

City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the
danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too

59i

hot m summer, and because m crowded sections of the city they are apt to
be schools of crime Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots
meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who would
play vigorous games must have places especially set aside for them, and, since
play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be pxovided for every child
as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities
m such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as
most children cannot afford to pay car-fare. In view of these facts cities
should secure available spaces at once so that they may not need to demolish
blocks of buildings in order to make playgrounds as New York has had to
do at a cost of nearly $1,000,000.00 an acre.

Neither must any city believe that simply to furnish open spaces will
secure the best results. There must be supervision of these playgrounds,
otherwise the older and stronger children occupy them to the exclusion of
the younger and weaker ones, they are so noisy that people living in the
neighborhood are annoyed; they are apt to get into the possession of gangs
and become the rendezvous of the most undesirable elements of the popula-
tion; the exercise and play is less systematic and vigorous when without
supervision; and moreover m all cities where the experiment has been tried
it has been found that such playgrounds are not well attended Sincerely
yours

4247 • TO ANDREW CARNEGIE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, February 17, 1907

My dear Mr. Carnegie: I return the clipping. When next you are here be
sure you give me the chance of having you at lunch or dinner, and then I will
talk over with you your letter. In this Japanese matter I can say with all
sincerity that I doubt if any President could have done more to secure peace
than I have done; and the situation was at times a very dangerous one. It
seems to me that you have fundamentally the right idea m your letter, which
is to increase in every way by the action of The Hague Conference the likeli-
hood of arbitration between nations. I am so glad you approve of what we
have done in South America. It seems to me that by joining Mexico with us
we freed ourselves of all suspicion of having ulterior motives. 1

With regards to Mrs. Carnegie, and all good wishes for yourself, believe
me, Sincerely yours

1 Roosevelt and President Diaz of Mexico, by previous arrangement, had sent
similar messages to the governments of Nicaragua and Honduras urging that they
submit their differences, then again threatening to cause war, to joint mediation
They agreed to this plan, but when the mediation failed Nicaragua invaded Hon-
duras on February 19. For a good account of this episode m Central American
rivalries, see Jessup, Root, I, 502 ff.

592

4248 * TO JOHN JAMES JENKINS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 18, 1907

Dear Mr. Jenkins; Secretary Moseley, of the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion, thinks the bill will substantially accomplish its purpose, altho it is a
sloppy piece of legislation The Attorney General thinks it will give very
much less than it ought to give, but that it does give something and that it
would be a misfortune to lose it. 1 Outsiders in whom I have great confidence
hold the same view very strongly. I shall take the matter up with the Attor-
ney General tomorrow, but I do hope that if we cannot do any better we
shall get the Senate bill. Of course, any improvements we can put in I want
to have put in. In any event, it seems to me that the only thing to do is to
have the bill go to conference in case you feel you cannot acquiesce in the
Senate amendments — that is, have the bill perfected m conference. This on
the assumption that you do not think it better to pass the bill as it is. Sincerely
yovrs

4249 * to curtis guild, junior Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 18, 1907

Sir: I have received the petition, signed by yourself and members of the
Legislature of Massachusetts, referring to the question of tariff legislation by
Congress 1 Any petition such as yours, signed by the Chief Executive and by
members of the Legislature of a great and powerful State, is entitled to and
will certainly receive my serious consideration, as well, I am sure, as that of
the Congress.

With assurance of my regard both for you personally and for you in

1 The bill, supported by Roosevelt in his annual message, conferred on the federal
government the right of appeal m criminal cases The President had pointed out the
importance of this measure both to facilitate the prosecution of certain antitrust
cases, particularly those pertaining to rebates, and to permit appeals by the govern-
ment from rulings by district judges on the constitutionality of statutes imposing
criminal penalties The House, at the previous session, had passed a bill giving the
government m all cnminal prosecutions the same right of review by writ of error
as that given the defendant State practices provided precedent for this remedy The
Senate, however, influenced by those more caunous even than P C Knox, amended
the House’s bill by limiting severely the government’s ability to employ a writ of
error After first rejecting the Senate’s version, the House agreed to a conference
report, which, m substance, was the same thing, see House Report , 59 Cong, 2
sess, no. 8113. Roosevelt, while observing that the law came “lamentably short of
accomplishing what should be accomplished” and would not “prevent frequent
failures of justice,” signed it because it did “represent a certain advance ” — Memo-
randum, March 2, 1907, Roosevelt Mss.

a The Massachusetts petition favored the principle of reciprocity for the creation
of maximum and minimum tariff schedules, and the establishment of a tariff com-
mission to investigate these schedules. See Congressional Record , XLI, 3009

593

your official capacity as the Governor of the ancient commonwealth of
Massachusetts, I am, Sincerely yours

4250 ' TO ROBERT MARION LA FOLLETTE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 19, 1907

My dear Senator: I agree with you that leasing is a means to an end; but my
experience tends to make me believe, with constantly increasing depth of
conviction, that the point to be aimed at is not so much an indiscriminate
forbidding of all combinations for whatever purpose, but rather a supervision
which will prevent noxious combinations and will insure any combination
that does take place being in the interest of the public. You say: “A firm
stand bji your order and for effective legislation will compel the representa-
tives of the coal states in the west to yield what is right.” I have certainly
stood firmly by my order, and I do not see how any human being could
have stood more firmly for effective legislation than I have stood in my
public messages to Congress, as well as in my private communications. But
I need not say to you that it will be a far more difficult matter permanently
to keep the coal lands withdrawn from entry when legislation has been re-
fused than it was to withdraw them pending the time when Congress should
have a chance to legislate concerning them. The last was a serious step; yet
after looking carefully into the matter I did not hesitate to take it, because it
was so clear that it was demanded by the public interest; but it is at least
open to question whether to take such action as a permanent policy when
Congress had refused to act can be considered proper from any standpoint.
If Congress fails to give me the power I ask, I shall then have to go over the
matter very carefully with my new Secretary of the Interior and new Com-
missioner of the General Land Office and do what seems best under the very
unfortunate conditions which the failure of Congress to act will have left. 1
Meanwhile, I have stood as firmly as any human being can stand for effective
legislation. I trust you and your colleagues will give it to me. Sincerely yours

4251 • to oscar solomon straus Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, February 20, 1907

My dear Mr. Straus: The investigation into the conditions of woman and
child labor should in my judgment unquestionably be made by the Bureau
of Labor. This is not merely a statistical investigation. If it were, it would
be eminently proper to have the Census Bureau conduct it, but as it is the
Census Bureau strongly objects to undertaking the work. Director North has
protested before the Committee dealing with the sundry civil appropriation
bill against having to undertake this work, saying that he did not regard

‘La Follette had introduced one of many bills, none of which emerged from

committee, to provide for the leasmg of coal lands under government supervision.

594

himself as in any way competent to carry on the work because of its being
of a kind in which he had no experience whatever, adding — “It is a kind of
work which is foreign to the whole theory of a census office, and it belongs
to the Bureau of Labor.” In short, to entrust the work to the Census Office
instead of to the Bureau of Labor is to frustrate the entire purpose of under-
taking the investigation. The proposed investigation is to bear fruit in
legislation if possible by the National Congress, if not, then by the State
legislatures in consequence of the publication of the facts produced by the
Bureau of Labor — always provided of course that the investigation shows
the necessity of any legislation whatever. I cannot too strongly state that in
my judgment the investigation will be shorn of a very large part of the good
results we have a right to expect from it, if it is not confided to the Bureau
of Labor. Matters concerning labor conditions should properly be investi-
gated by the Bureau of Labor. Any effort to minimize the functions of the
Bureau by taking away from it these investigations should not succeed, espe-
cially when the real objection to the Bureau is that it has done the work
allotted to it in first-rate shape, as, for instance, in the case of the packing
house investigation last spring. It seems to me inadvisable, for every reason,
to penalize the Bureau of Labor for the excellent investigations it has made
(as for instance in this packing house matter) by taking away from it the
right to make such investigations in the future. The Bureau was organized to
advance the legitimate interests of labor. I would not for one moment tolerate
its acting in a demagogic spirit or its failing to pay just as much heed to the
rights and interests of the capitalist who is acting decently as to those of the
wageworker who is acting decently, but I have not seen the slightest symp-
tom of any dereliction of duty by the Bureau or its chief, Mr. Neill, and it
does not seem to me wise to give the impression that we are penalizing the
Bureau because it has m proper fashion sought to represent the labor interests
of the country. Sincerely yours

4252 * TO JOSEPH BENSON FORAKER Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, February 21, 1907

My dear Senator Foraker: I have just received your letter and the petition
of the Congressmen for the appointment of Judge Adams as judge of the
new district. Senator Dick has just called on me this morning. I have also seen
Secretary Taft. Half a dozen names have been presented to me, all of them
apparently men who have a right to be considered for the position, and I
shall have to take a day or two before I can give you any definite answer.

About Amor Smith as Surveyor of Customs at Cincinnati, I am told that
he has another appointment and that he ought not to hold the present one. I
forget the details. Probably you are acquainted with them. I have directed

595

the Monfort and Bosworth appointments to be sent in at once 1 Sincerely
yours

4253 • 10 JOHN ST. LOE STRACHEY Roosevelt MSS .

Confidential Washington, February 22, 1907

My dear Strachey: Your letter was very interesting. I was profoundly imprest
with what you described in both Berlin and Paris. I regret greatly to say
that in its essentials I think your belief as to the foreign policies of the two
countries is justifiable. Let me say, however, that in reference to the war
scare between Germany and England two years ago, some very foolish and
irresponsible talk in England, which was not official, but which the Germans
accepted as official, undoubtedly influenced them in their opinion, and I was
almost as much surprised to find out how men like Durand lookt at affairs as
I was to find out how the Germans lookt at them. Germany had no idea of
making an attack, but was sure that England did intend to attack; and on the
other hand, England had no idea of making an attack, and was sure that
Germany intended to attack her. The result was that the blow came near
being struck by one or the other simply from firm belief that the opponent
intended to strike. However, I must also add that what you describe as to the
German attitude toward war, which is fundamentally the Bismarck attitude,
is one that in the progress of civilization England and America have now
outgrown; and for the sake of civilization I hope that other nations will also
outgrow it. In fact, our danger, in our two countries, is not of too brutal and
warlike a spirit, but of a curious indifference to, and inability to grasp, the
future on the part of our people as a whole, and the growth of a foolish peace
spirit which is not merely harmless, but fraught with the possibility of mis-
chief In this country I encounter people who strenuously object to our

1 Although Foraker by his tactics in the Brownsville matter had clearly indicated
his hostility to Roosevelt and Taft, and by his performance at the Gridiron Club
in effect had insulted the President, he had his way on three of the four appoint-
ments mentioned m the letter Amor Smith, Jr, one of the senator’s oldest friends,
vtas reappointed surveyor of customs at Cincinnati, and E. R Monfort and C. A.
Bosworth, two of the senator’s active suppoiters, were appointed, respectively,
postmaster at Cincinnati and assistant treasurer of the United States at Cincinnati,
John J. Adams, also a Foraker adherent, fared less well The protests of
Congressman Burton, a Taft manager, persuaded Roosevelt to reject Adams and
nominate John E. Slater, a Burton man, for judge of the newly created District of
Southern Ohio This decision, announced on March 18, marked a turning point
m the President’s policy Two days earlier he had directed Cortelyou and Meyer
to exercise a “peculiar regard” for Taft’s judgment on patronage matters (see No
4279, note 1 ) Twelve days later Foraker formally announced his opposition to Taft’s
candidacy Thereafter, m matters of federal patronage, the precedent of the Adams
case generally ruled.

596

keeping up our navy, and at the same time hamper me in coming to a satis-
factory arrangement with Japan, for instance, that is, they invite trouble and
refuse to prepare the means which would avert disaster if trouble came. The
rather painful thing is that this is the attitude adopted by a Congressman
named McCall, who represents among his constituents Harvard University,
and is rather the ideal of the educated meffectives. These people are always
denouncing armaments, but are capable at any time of demanding or em-
barking on a policy which will shortly land us where we have to face the
alternative of a humiliating backdown or of a disastrous war unless we are
already armed. As for McCall, by the way, you exactly described him in an
article in the Spectator two or three months ago on the life of Randolph
Churchill; except that he has not, thank fortune, Churchill’s ability. He is
insignificant in influence; but he represents a bad tendency.

In France I gather that my sympathies would be with Abbe Houtin; and
Sabatier’s description of the Pope exactly agrees with what I had heard,
except that I had attributed more power to Merry del Val. 1

With infinite labor and against every kind of opposition I am gradually
working out the most satisfactory solution of which the Japanese business
was capable. It is curious how in our two governments parallel problems
always arise. The attitude of Australia toward Japanese immigration is
exactly that of California — the difference simply was that it happened that
the Japanese began to come in great numbers to California and therefore the
question arose in one case while it did not arise m the other. The Japanese
Government has behaved very well, and Aoki, their Ambassador here, is
most intelligent, and appreciates thoroly the wide difference that there must
always be between exacting good treatment of individuals who are traveling
or sojourning in a foreign land, and exacting admission for floods of immi-
grants who go there in such masses as to make a disturbing element in the
population. The Japanese would not for one moment tolerate such an in-
trusion of American laborers in their own territory. Sooner or later America
will have to do m the matter of immigration what Australia is now doing,
altho I think that Australia has been unwise in undertaking the policy so
soon, especially when there is so small a birth rate m Australia as to make the
advance of population very slow

I now have the right basis for a settlement with Japan, which is, that we
shall treat the Japanese who are here on an exact equality with the people of

1 Abbe Houtin and Paul Sabatier, both French Catholics, felt that the Vatican had
erred m its decision to fight the French law of December '1905 separating church and
state. Whatever the defects of the law and its administration, Sabatier pointed out,
it had been endorsed by an enormous majority of French citizens. The Pope’s
encyclicals against it, in 1907 the subject of much argument all over the Christian
world were supported, he maintained, only by the Clerical party, not by Catholic
France

597

Europe, but that the Japs of the labor classes, who of course make up the
enormous bulk of possible immigrants, shall not be admitted.

With warm regards to Mrs. Strachey, believe me, Faithfully yours

4254 • TO THEODORE PERRY SHONTS Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, February 26, 1907

Sir: I have considered with much care the question whether the Commission
should accept one of the bids for the construction of the Panama Canal un-
der the proposed contract, or should reject them all. There were two bids
worthy of consideration. The bid of the MacArthur Syndicate at 12V2 per
cent was the only one which came within the requirements. The Oliver and
Bangs bid at 6 . 75 per cent was rejected as not satisfying the specifications of
the invitation. Mr. MacArthur and his associates not objecting, and preferring
this course to an invitation for new bids, Mr. Oliver was allowed to perfect
his bid with new associates and new financial responsibility, but this permis-
sion did not in any way change the situation from what it would have been,
had Mr. Oliver’s bid in its present form been presented on January 1 2th, the
day fixt for receiving the bids. Under the invitation for bids, the reserved
power exists in the commission to reject all bids, and the first question is
whether it shall do so. The purpose of the contract was to secure, in the
building of the Canal, the services of the best, most experienced and most
skilled contractors in the country, at the least risk to them, and at the least
expense to the Government. An investigation into two bids above mentioned
shows that this purpose of the Government has failed. In each bid the con-
tractors of experience, whose personal services in the work are what the
Commission has sought, have made arrangements to divide the profits under
the percentage bid with bankers or others to whom the contractors have had
to look for the needed capital, so that the contractors who are actually to do
the work have arranged to accept a comparatively small proportion of the
profits accruing under the contract. In other words, the Government by this
arrangement is made to pay a high percentage for the use of capital which it
might itself have furnished at a much lower rate, while the percentage which
the contractors are to receive for the real benefit they are to confer on the
Government is reduced to very meager and perhaps inadequate compensa-
tion. No contract can ultimately operate to the benefit of the Government
in which the contractors’ energy, skill, experience and personal supervision
of the work are not adequately paid for. The defect in the bids which I have
described and which our investigation has made apparent may be due to a
defect in the invitation for bids which perhaps stipulated for too heavy a
bond and the investment of too large capital by the contractors, or it may be
because the bidders have taken an entirely different view of the money risk
involved from that taken by the Government. Mr. Stevens, the Chief Engi-
neer, who proposed the form of contract which with modifications was

598

adopted, advises against accepting either bid because acceptance of either
would not in his judgment accomplish the purpose he sought. The considera-
tions stated are by themselves sufficient to require a rejection of all bids and
a change in the proposed form of contract. 1

One of the chief reasons for adopting the contract as proposed was that
in its main features it was formulated by Mr. Stevens who was expected to
supervise the work as Chief Engineer He had had experience with contracts
of this character and he had had eighteen months’ actual experience with
the work on the Isthmus. Less than ten days ago I received a letter from Mr.
Stevens, in which he asked to be entirely relieved from work on the canal
as soon as he could be replaced by a competent person and that person could
become familiar with the work. I have accepted his resignation. The with-
drawal of Mr. Stevens takes away the special reason mentioned for proceed-
ing under the present form of contract.

In order to secure continuity in engineering control and management
m the future, I have decided to request you to assign to the office of Chief
Engineer, Major Goethals, a member of the Corps of Army Engineers. It
is not my purpose by requesting this appointment to disturb in any way the
present organization on the Isthmus, which is very satisfactory, nor to inter-
fere with the admirable work now being done by the present Assistant Chief
Engineer, A4r. Ripley, and the various heads of departments. The work of
construction is going on well and will continue to do so. The organization
already created is increasing the excavation each month, and can be relied
upon under competent leadership to make further and constant progress
pending a period within which a new form of contract can be devised by
Major Goethals and his associates, if it is deemed advisable to do the work
by contract. The services of the same high-class contractors whose bids we
are now rejecting or others of similar standing, may then be invoked m the
interest of economy and speed.

Two other competent members of the Engineer Corps, Major Gaillard
and Major Sibert, will accompany Major Goethals to the Isthmus, and assist
him in his labors. 2 They will be appointed on the Commission.

Major Goethals concurs with Mr. Stevens in advising me that all bids on
the present form of contract should be rejected.

1 The defects m the invitation which led Roosevelt to reject the bids were primarily
the result of opening the contract to public bidding, see No. 4003, note 4, and
especially Appendix I

a Major David Dubose Gaillard, the chief of the central construction division, super-
vised the gigantic excavation of the Culebra Cut William Luther Sibert headed the
Atlantic construction division Besides these two men, the competent managerial staff
under Goethals included Sydney B Williamson, in charge of the Pacific division,
who was the only civilian engineer to hold a key post after Goethals took office,
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Foote Hodges, who was responsible for building the
locks, and Rear Admiral Henry Harwood, who constructed the terminal facilities,
machine shops, and other auxiliary structures Mack, Land Divided , ch xli, sum-
marizes the work of Goethals and his staff.

599

I request the Commission to take the formal action necessary to reject
the MacArthur and the Oliver bids, in accordance with the power reserved to
it in its invitation. Very respectfully yours

4255 * TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON RoOSCVClt MSS .

Washington, February 26, 1907

My dear Senator Alltson: There have been a very great number of bad acci-
dents on railways recently. In this respect at least our railroads make the most
unpleasant showing compared with railways abroad. Can we not this year m
the sundry civil bill make some provision which will give the Interstate
Commerce Commission power to investigate accidents, report on the re-
sponsibility for them, and prescribe remedies by regulations which will have
the force of law ? 1 I cannot give you the details, but if you are willing to
take up the matter I will ask Chairman Knapp to put himself m touch with
you immediately. Sincerely yours

4256 * TO EDWARD GREY RoOSCVelt MSS.

Washington, February 28, 1907

My dear Sir Edward ' It was a pleasure seeing Bryce, and I anticipate real
good from his being here. He is an old and valued friend of mine. Twenty-
five years ago, when I was in the New York Legislature, he sent me some
of the chapters of the aftertime American Commonwealth for correction and
suggestion; and he spent a couple of nights with me at the White House two
or three years ago.

I quite agree with what you say as to the Congo.

We have made good progress toward settlement of the Japanese diffi-
culty; but of course are not quite out of the woods yet. However, I think we
have established the main lines of the solution; and have done it in a way that
satisfies California without bringing a break with Japan.

As to disarmament, or rather the limitation of increase of armament, it is
a little difficult for me to know just exactly what to do. I do not think that
the limitation of armaments will have any very great effect upon diminishing
the likelihood of war, tho it may have a little The chief thing would be the
relief of the strain upon the budgets of the different nations; and this is a
very desirable end, for which I shall do whatever is m my power. It is hard
for us to say anything about reducing the size of armies, for we have no

1 As Congress took no action, Roosevelt requested legislation providing for federal
investigation of railroad accidents in his annual message of the following December.
A comprehensive accident reports act was not passed, however, until May 1910
That act, advocated by the Interstate Commerce Commission since 1905, closely
resembled British legislation passed forty years earlier. For detail on legislation con-
cerning railroad accidents, see I L Sharfman, The Interstate Commerce Commission
(New York, 1931), I, 256, 267-269

600

army to speak of compared with European powers, and such being the case
it is hardly our business to act as schoolmaster to Europe. When we come to
the navy, there are great practical difficulties to be faced. If Russia rebuilds
her fleet — and I do not see how she can be forbidden to do so — Japan may
very well desire to build hers so as to keep ahead of Russia, and that would
create a very strong feeling m the minds of the people here that we should
continue building. Germany, I suppose, will feel that any proposal to stop
building fleets now is really aimed at her. I have felt that the most practical
way to secure a limitation in the increase of naval expenditures was to agree
that no ship should be built beyond a certain size — say fifteen thousand
tons, but neither your people nor Germany would consider this, and the
building of the Dreadnought inaugurated a new race in the matter of size.
Japan entered the lists, and it was then impossible for us to refrain from
following, and I suppose Germany will be bound in the end herself to try to
emulate or surpass your ships. My present feeling is the same as yours,
namely, that there should be a discussion of, or at least a proposal to discuss,
at The Hague, the question of excessive expenditure m armaments, but
Germany’s extreme reluctance to have the question raised causes me some
doubts as to what course is advisable, for we shan’t get much good result
from The Hague if we go there with one of the great powers (Germany)
and perhaps another (Russia) thoroly angered and suspicious, and anxious,
therefore, to find some good excuse for preventing the accomplishment of
anything even as regards other features of the program. I think there is a
general feeling also that in view of the marvelous ability certain nations have
of concealing what they are doing, we would have no real idea whether or
not they were keeping down their armaments even in the event of an agree-
ment to do so. Of course for the free and civilized powers to agree to a limi-
tation which would leave them helpless before a military despotism or bar-
barism is not to be considered. Altogether, the whole subject is full of
difficulties. When Congress has adjourned and we have had time to look
around, I will take the matter up with Root, so that he can go over it with
you. Personally I think that the strengthening of The Hague Court is of
more consequence than disarmament. Every effort should be made to
extend the number of possible international disputes which are to be sub-
jected to arbitration, and above all to make it easier to secure effective arbi-
tration. Even here, however, we can accomplish anything at all only by not
trying to accomplish too much. I fear quite as much the amiable but irra-
tional enthusiasts for an impossible progress m peace as I do those who desire
that no real progress shall be made in the matter, for the former, even more
than the latter, may render the whole meeting abortive. I think we should
be very careful not to raise such high anticipations as will insure disappoint-
ment with the actual outcome.

As to the Swettenham matter - 1 I trust I need hardly assure you that I

1 See No. 4231.

did not care a rap about his letter, and that my only anxiety was at once to
take such action as would prevent the more foolish among our own people
from fancying that they had been insulted and doing something unwise m
their turn. I suppose the fact was that Swettenham was completely rattled
by the strain of an emergency to which he was unequal. Our officers (and
the Jamaica people also) reported that tho personally very active, he lacked
all power to introduce any land of organization, so that there was practically
no head at all to affairs. He possest the physical courage, activity, and mental
ability of the corporal;* whereas he needed both the moral and physical
courage, activity, sagacity, and power of the general — and those he did not
have. In addition to his demoralization, there was also his old-time Saturday
Review, or Blackwood's, dislike of America. He had already shown this in
his attitude toward our Panama Canal people when, on behalf of this Govern-
ment, they were endeavoring to get Jamaica laborers, treating one of them,
Jackson Smith, who had gone to Jamaica, m exceedingly offensive manner —
indeed, with such gratuitous offensiveness, including a gross attack on Secre-
tary of War Taft, that when the incident was reported to me I was quite at a
loss what to make of it. But I have my own trials with the same type of man
in the American service, and therefore have a very cordial sympathy for
those who have to deal with such a man m any other service, A couple of
years ago, for instance, I suffered under the affliction of having as our
Minister to Venezuela a man named Bowen. He was more capable than
Swettenham, but he was also even more boorish, and had the same dislike of
England that Swettenham has of America He was gratuitously insolent to
Michael Herbert, then your Ambassador here — one of the sweetest tem-
pered men I ever met I finally had to turn him out of the service.

Congress is about to adjourn. I have had what I suppose is the usual meas-
ure of success with legislative bodies; that is, I have succeeded in getting thru
some things that I very much wisht, altho not always in the form I most
desired, and I have failed to get two or three other things which, tho not
necessary, were certainly desirable. On the whole I have come out of it pretty
well, and have just succeeded m getting the Santo Domingo treaty ratified,
which means another step toward the gradual introduction of order in the
West Indies. Exactly how I shall work out of the Cuban matter I am not yet
quite certain; but I shall get thru it somehow Meanwhile the Panama Canal is
getting along better than I had expected, and I am much pleased at the way
m which we have met the acute phase of the Japanese question.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

[■ Handwritten ] * I think here I have unduly flattered him, according to
our officers his activity was unpleasantly like that of a chicken without a
head.

602

42 57 • memorandum Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, March 2, 1907

Memorandum on signing proclamations creating or increasing the following
forest reserves,

Toiyabe Forest Reserve, Nevada.

Wenaha Forest Reserve, Oregon and Washington.

Las Animas Forest Reserve, Colorado and New Mexico.

Colville Forest Reserve, Washington
Siskiyou Forest Reserve, Oregon
Bear Lodge Forest Reserve, Wyoming.

Holy Cross Forest Reserve, Colorado.

Uncompahgre Forest Reserve, Colorado.

Park Range Forest Reserve, Colorado
Imnaha Forest Reserve, Oregon.

Big Belt Forest Reserve, Montana

Big Hole Forest Reserve, Idaho and Montana.

Otter Forest Reserve, Montana.

Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve, Montana.

Montezuma Forest Reserve, Colorado.

Olympic Forest Reserve, Washington.

Little Rockies Forest Reserve, Montana.

San Juan Forest Reserve, Colorado.

Medicine Bow Forest Reserve, Colorado and Wyoming.

Yellowstone Forest Reserve, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Port Neuf Forest Reserve, Idaho.

Palouse Forest Reserve, Idaho.

Wciser Forest Reserve, Idaho.

Priest River Forest Reserve, Idaho and Washington.

Cabinet Forest Reserve, Montana and Idaho.

Rainier Forest Reserve, Washington.

Washington Forest Reserve, Washington.

Ashland Forest Reserve, Oregon.

Coquille Forest Reserve, Oregon.

Cascade Forest Reserve, Oregon.

Umpqua Forest Reserve, Oregon.

Blue Mountain Forest Reserve, Oregon.

These forest reserves were determined upon and the preparation of the
necessary papers ordered some months ago — in two thirds of the cases
some years ago — in the exercise of the duty imposed upon me by act of
Congress of March 3, 1891. The utmost care and deliberation have been
exercised in deciding upon the boundaries of the proposed reserves, in all
but a very few cases long continued and detailed field examinations have

603

been made, and in the remainder examinations amply .sufficient to justify the
proposed action.

The necessary proclamations under existing law now come before me
and the question is presented whether I should refrain from acting under
the existing law because there is now under consideration by Congress a
proposal to change the law so as to require Congressional action upon the
establishing of such forest reserves. 3 If I did not act, reserves which I con-
sider very important for the interests of the United States would be wholly
or in part dissipated before Congress has an opportunity again to consider
the matter, while under the action which I propose to take they will be
preserved; and if Congress differs from me in this opinion it will have full
opportunity m the future to take such position as it may desire anent the
discontinuance of the reserves, by affirmative action, taken with the fullest
opportunity for considering the subject by itself and on its own merits. If
by any chance land more valuable for other purposes than for forest reserves
is shown to have been included m these reserves, I shall forthwith restore it
to entry.

Failure on my part to sign these proclamations would mean that immense
tracts of valuable timber would fall into the hands of the lumber syndicates
before Congress has an opportunity to act, whereas the creation of the re-
serves means that this timber will be kept in the interest of the home-maker;
for our entire purpose in this forest reserve policy is to keep the land for
the benefit of the actual settler and home-maker, to further his interests in
every way, and, while using the natural resources of the country for the
benefit of the present generation, also to use them in such manner as to
keep them unimpaired for the benefit of the children now growing up to
inherit the land. This is the final and exclusive object not merely of our
forest policy but of our whole public land policy.

4258 TO JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON RoOSCVelt MSS

Washington, March 2, 1907

My dear Mr , Speaker: I do not usually feel inclined to try to influence your
judgment in matters of home legislation, for my experience has been that
your judgment is rather more apt to be sound than mine m such matters,
but m the Philippine Islands I feel that no one can tell what is needed (alike
from the standpoint of their material interests and from the standpoint of

1 On February 23, Senator Fulton of Oregon had introduced an amendment to the
agricultural appropriations bill providing that “hereafter no forest reserve shall be
created, nor shall any addition be made to one heietofore created, within the limits
of the States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, or Wyoming
except by act of Congress” Roosevelt’s creation of new and his expansion of old
reserves only four days before he signed this law raised a cry of protest in the West
that was vehemently expressed m the press and at a convention called that June m
Denver. Robbins, Our Landed Heritage , ch. xxi, carefully analyzes this episode 111 its
relation to the general attitude of the West to Roosevelt’s conservation policies

604

sentiment) so well as those whose special business, and the main part of whose
life work for a number of years, it has been to attend to the needs of the
Islands and to shape their development. The Senate has turned us down on
the Philippine tariff and this has caused great depression, not merely physical
but moral, in the Islands. I cannot say too strongly how important I feel it is
that we should have the bank bill past at this session, and what a blow it will
be to the administration if its staunchest and most efficient friend, the
Speaker of the House, refuses this aid. 1 1 am not competent myself to speak
as to the merits of the bill, altho I place great reliance upon the success of a
similar measure in Egypt, under Cromer, who is a first-class admimstrator
and financier of the non-Swettenham type. But Taft, who knows the Islands
like a book and cares for the Islanders not merely as if they were his little
brown brothers but his little brown children, and Ide, who has just come
from there — all those who have the most practical interest in their welfare
feel, that this bank is of great consequence and that to secure it means very
much from every standpoint. Of course no precedent whatever for this
country is established by any form of Government aid, whether to banks or
railroads or agriculturists, in the Philippines, any more than refusing to have
an eight-hour law for alien laborers at Panama had anything to do with the
eight-hour law here at home.

Now, Uncle Joe, stand by me if you can. After you told me that the Ap-
palachian forest reserve upon which I had set my heart simply was not to be
considered, I acquiesced and took my medicine. For the last two years I have
accepted your view as to just what we should say on the tariff — or rather as
to what we should not say — and I am satisfied that it was wiser than the
course I had intended to follow. Do help us out on this. Faithfully yours

4259 • TO ALBERT EDWARD MEAD Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 3, 1907

My dear Governor Mead : 1 I enclose herewith a copy of a letter from Mr.
Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester. I call your especial attention to our experi-
ence with the Olympic Reserve. In this a very large elimination was made
some years ago in response to a plea that it was more valuable for agriculture
than for timber, but as a matter of fact the lands were almost entirely taken
up under the timber and stone act, are today largely without settlers, and

3 The bank bill, providing aid for the establishment in the Philippines of a bank to
make loans to those engaged m agriculture, had been passed by the Senate. On
March 3, under suspension of the rules and therefore by a two-thirds vote, it was
passed by the House. Cannon, m the chair, did not vote He must have approved
of the measure, however, for had he opposed it he could have prevented its con-
sideration or influenced enough Republicans to destroy the party discipline that was
needed for the two-thirds vote

1 Albert Edward Mead, Governor of Washington, 1905-1909

their extremely valuable timber has past into the hands of a few timber
companies.

I entirely agree as to the admirable quality of our new Commissioner of
the General Land Office, Judge Ballinger. During this coming summer I
intend to have Secretary Garfield, Commissioner Ballinger and Chief Forester
Pmchot go most carefully over the whole forest preserve matter, and so far
as practicable, have them visit personally at least certain of the reserves. If it
shall appear that any of the reserves we have made, whether recently or of
old date, include agricultural land, that land will be restored to entry. But
it is surely destructive in the highest degree to the interests of the country
and the interests of the State of Washington, to turn over rich timber land
to great syndicates who slan it and leave it worthless. We wish to use the
forests, but to use them in the way that every really civilized people does use
them, that is, to preserve them for future generations. In short, we wish to
administer the lands so that they will be preserved for the actual home-
makers and for the children who are to come after them. I am sure, my dear
Governor, that this is also your purpose, and that no man is better able to put
it into effective form than your fellow citizen, Judge Ballinger, of Seattle,
whom I have just appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office, and
who enters upon his duties tomorrow. Sincerely yours

4260 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, March 3, 1907

Dear Kermit: Poor little Archie has diphtheria, and we have had a wearing
forty-eight hours. Of course it is harder upon Mother a good deal than
upon me, because she spends her whole time with him together with the
trained nurse, while I simply must attend to my work during these closing
hours of Congress (I have worked each day steadily up to half past seven and
also in the evening) , and only see Archiekins for twenty minutes or a half
hour before dinner. The poor little fellow likes to have me put my hands on
his forehead, for he says they smell so clean and soapy' Last night he was
very sick, but this morning he is better, and Dr. Rixey thinks everything is
going well. Dr. Lambert is coming on this afternoon to see him. Ethel, who
is away at Philadelphia, will be sent to stay with the Rixeys. Quentin, who
has been exposed somewhat to infection, is not allowed to see other little
boys, and is leading a career of splendid isolation among the ushers and
policemen.

Since I got back here I have not done a thing except work as the Presi-
dent must during the closing days of a session of Congress. Mother was, for-
tunately, getting much better, but now of course is having a very hard time
of it nursing darling little Archie. He is just as good as gold — so patient
and loving. Yesterday that scamp Quentin said to Mademoiselle- “If only I
had Archie’s nature, and my head, wouldn’t it be great?” Your loving father

606

[Handwritten] In all his sickness Archie remembered that today was
Mademoiselle s birthday and sent her his love and congratulations — which
promptly reduced good Mademoiselle to tears.

4261 • TO WILLIAM ALLFN WHITE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 6, 1907

My dear White * Many thanks for your telegram of the 4th instant. During
the last few days Cortelyou and I have been carefully over that railway mail
matter. 1 As Congress did not act, we decided that the administration should.
The railroad lobby beat Murdock m the House. La Follette got in the lower-
ing of the rates in the Senate and then they knocked it out in conference,
but the railroad lobby could do nothmg with Cortelyou, who, as a matter of
fact, has had this matter under careful consideration, and had been worki ng
cautiously toward a solution months before even Murdock took it up. This
does not lessen our obligations to Murdock, but it is only fair to Cortelyou
that I should say it.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

4262 * TO MAXWELL EVARTS Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 7, 1907

My dear Mr. Evans : 1 Referring to your request yesterday that I have
an interview with Mr. Harnman, I beg to state that I shall be glad to see Mr.
Harriman at any time. The visit is evidently expected by the outside world,
as numerous newspaper correspondents have been inquiring about it, stating
that they understood an appointment had been arranged. There is one thing
I should like to suggest, however. Much experience has taught me that with
the best of intentions it is not always possible for two people to remember
exactly what was said in a conversation between them, and if it ever becomes
necessary to quote what I may say in this conversation I should like it under-

1 The post-office appropriations act which passed Congress March 2, 1907, reduced by
moie than 15 per cent the annual payment to the railroads for post-office cars
and lowcicd by about 5 per cent rates on railroad routes carrying an average
weight of moie than 5000 pounds of mail per day. Victor Murdock, Republican
congressman from Kansas, and Senator La Follette had attempted to lower the rates
still further by revising the method for computmg the average weight per day —
the basic figure for postage rate determination. Their intent was effected by orders
issued by the Postmaster General on March 2 and June 7, 1907. Full information
about legislative and executive action on mail rates can be found m Post-Office
Department , Annual Reports , 1907, pp. 26-33.

1 Maxwell Evarts, railroad executive, lawyer, “Harriman’s ambassador” to the White
House, had requested Roosevelt on March 6 to see Harriman to discuss railroad
questions. The conference agreed to in this letter was never held. Before it could be
arranged, the New York World published Roosevelt’s letter to Sherman on Harri-
man. Thereafter the President and financier never again met, see Kennan, Harriman,
II, 223-227.

607

stood that the quotation is to be submitted to me first so that we may be sure
that our recollections agree.

With regard, Sincerely yours

4263 • TO WILLIAM EMLEN ROOSEVELT Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, March 8, 1907

Dear Em: Just a line to thank you for your letter and for the map of the
Cove.

Archie had a bad turn yesterday and there were a few minutes during
which it seemed unlikely that he would pull thru, but he did recover and
now really seems on the road to getting well. But of course we cannot tell
when further complications will occur.

I am concerned at what you tell me about the situation in the business
world. I have steered as clear of agitation as possible this winter, and certainly
Congress has done nothing bad and has done some things that were good,
including especially the currency bill. Harriman has asked to see me. I do not
know what he intends to advise. He is responsible for no small part of the
unrest.

Archie will not be able to go on that southern trip, and therefore Edith
will abandon it. Whenever you come down I can see you. Let me know in
advance so that we can have you at the White House. I am glad you had a
talk with Ted and warned him about business. Poor Ted! He will find it very
hard when he begins. I was disappointed not to see George at Harvard, but
of course it would have been only a thirty seconds’ glimpse at best. I did
not see Ted for two minutes all told, and those were in the presence of
outsiders.

With love to everyone, believe me, Affectionately yours

4264 • TO JAMES NORRIS GILLETT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 9, 1907

My dear Governor : x I do not know whether you can do anything as to the
matter about which I am writing you or not; but I think it advisable that you
should know just the situation as regards the Japanese business. The whole
trouble in securing the exclusion of Japanese laborers has come from the at-
titude of the violent extremists in San Francisco who profess to have this
very object in view. They themselves have been and now are the obstacles
in the way to the accomplishment of their profest purposes. This is so obvi-
ous that I am inclined to think that many of them do not really wish to
secure the exclusion of Japanese laborers, because they feel that to do so
would be to take away one of their political assets, and that they prefer to
prevent the accomplishment of their nominal purpose so that they may con-

1 James Norris Gillett, Republican Governor of California, 1907-1911

608

tmue to use the question to secure notoriety and temporary influence. It can-
not be too strongly stated that this is the central difficulty in the situation.

Under the legislation recently enacted by Congress I can provide for
keeping out of the country all Japanese of the laboring classes, save those
who come from Japan with passports direct to the United States. This of
course means that Japan can, if she chooses, grant passports to laborers to
come direct to the United States, and under the Act of Congress I would
have no means of keeping these out. In other words, the law becomes
inoperative, and it is useless to invoke it, unless there is a good understanding
between the Japanese and United States Governments, in accordance with
which the Japanese Government refuses to issue passports to her laboring
people to come indirect to the United States. Now the Japanese Govern-
ment has exprest its willingness thus to refuse to issue such passports if there
is no discrimination m our schools against Japanese children of school age.
Furthermore, anything done to insult or wrong the Japanese, as Japanese,
would, if sufficiently serious, simply result in this Government’s finding itself
unable to insist upon or secure the carrying out of Japan’s purpose to prevent
the direct immigration to our shores of her laboring people, which would of
course render it useless for us to invoke the law recently enacted, as this
only avails to prevent their coming here indirectly by Hawaii, Canada or
Mexico.

It is reported in the papers that a Mr. Cammetti, or a man with some
similar name, introduced into your State Senate a bill reopening the question
in San Francisco. It has been reported that there was a purpose to establish
“Jim Crow” cars for Japanese at certain California cities. It has been re-
ported that various other measures equally silly, equally indefensible, have
been proposed . 2 It is difficult to understand why the people of California
should not realize that every such proposal might just as well be called a
proposal to prevent the exclusion of Japanese laborers, for every man intro-
ducing or favoring such a proposal is simply doing all that he can to prevent
the accomplishment of what is profest to be the purpose of the labor unions
and other bodies which m California contend, for good public reasons, that
it is against the interest of the commonwealth to have Japanese laborers ad-
mitted. The National Government has met with only one difficulty m secur-
ing this object, and that is the difficulty caused by these foolish or designing
agitators who most loudly repeat the cry of Japanese exclusion at the very
moment that they are doing all they can to prevent its becoming a fact. The
Mayor of San Francisco and the School Board were most reasonable, and

* The California Assembly had passed a bill limiting the ownership of land by
Chinese and Japanese to a five-year period, the Senate was considering a bill to
exclude Japanese over ten years of age from primary schools attended by white
children. Gillctt conveyed Roosevelt’s objections to the Senate, which, in accordance
with the President’s requests, dropped both measures For a full account of the
President’s negotiations with Gillett, see Bailey, Roosevelt and the Japanese-
Amencan Crises , ch. viii.

609

we were able to reach an entirely satisfactory understanding with them. As
soon as, in accordance with this understanding, the Japanese pupils of school
age are admitted to the schools of San Francisco exactly as the children of
other foreigners are admitted I will issue the (proclamation) order authorized
under the recent legislation of Congress. 3 Until such action is taken the
(proclamation) order will of course not be issued; nor will it be issued or
enforced if other measures are taken of petty persecution toward the Japa-
nese; for, as I have already explained, the effectiveness of the legislation de-
pends entirely upon agreement between the Governments of Japan and the
United States, and this agreement can be reached and maintained only if our
people behave with the same good faith and sense of international obligation
that we expect the people of Japan in their turn to show. Sincerely yours

4265 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, March 10, 1907

Dear Elihu: Please come in to see me, either this evening at 10.00 or tomor-
row morning, about the action or threatened action of the California legis-
lature concerning schools I am convinced that it has been a mistake on our
part not to take open action before this. Perhaps an open letter from me to
Governor Gillett will accomplish the result. We can communicate by tele-
graph if necessary. If we let things drift we may get in a very bad situation.
Of course we can always refuse to restrain the Japanese immigration; but
while this will treat the San Franciscans just as they deserve, it will not solve
the situation but on the contrary will make it worse. We should not longer
delay. If necessary Metcalf and Flint can be brought in to talk with us. Sin-
cerely yours

4266 • TO JAMES NORRIS GILLETT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 11, 1907

My dear Governor Gillett: My letter of March 9th was wiitten before I saw
in the papers the statement that one House of the California Legislature had
past with practical or entire unanimity a bill including the Japanese with the
Mongolians and other Asiatics for whom separate schools are to be estab-
lished. I do not know the details of the legislation. If it is meant to be inef-
fective and simply an expression of opinion or assertion of an abstract right
which it is not intended to enforce, then it is merely a foolish and wanton
insult to Japan, and may have little effect save to make it more difficult on
the part of the national Government to secure for California what California

“This agreement had been reached during conferences, between Roosevelt and
Mayor Schmitz and the school board in early February. There aie detailed ac-
counts of these conferences in Bailey, Roosevelt and the Ja panel e- American Crises,
ch. vi, and Jessup, Root, II, 12-14

610

desires, and to keep on terms of cordial friendship, as it should keep, with a
great and friendly nation.

If it is meant to be effective, if it is meant to destroy an agreement to
which the Secretary of State and I were able to come with the entire Cali-
fornia delegation m Congress, and with Mayor Schmitz and the entire School
Board, then it is exceedingly mischievous. At the outset let me point out that
this agreement not only commanded the hearty and unanimous support of
all of the Senators and Representatives of Calif orma in Congress, but the
hearty and unanimous support of Mayor Schmitz and the School Board,
without regard to political party. Nor is it necessary at this time to discuss
whether or not, under the treaty, the Japanese, as the Administration con-
tends, have secured to them the right to equal school privileges with
those of any alien students of any other nation residing in the Umted States.
That such rights can, and if necessary must, be secured to them by treaty, I
have personally no doubt. But whether these rights are or are not secured
to them under the present treaty, and should or should not be secured to
them under subsequent treaties, the point which it seems to me all-important
is that in the effort of the Administration to secure to California the substance
of its desires, we ought not to be hampered by insistence upon what is not
even the shadow of this substance.

Mayor Schmitz and the School Board proposed to us a plan with which
we were entirely satisfied, this plan providing that all foreign children,
whether Japanese or of other nationalities, should be kept m separate schools
or classes when either their age or their lack of understanding of English
rendered this course advisable. The School Board informed me with all
emphasis that this entirely satisfied them; that this met every legitimate
need of the situation and provided against all possible abuses or difficulties
connected with the presence of the Japanese in the schools.

Now, whatever the legal rights of the situation may be, it is most un-
wise for the people of California to insist upon something which is abso-
lutely useless, which works no possible benefit, and which cannot but be
taken as insulting to a people with whom we have ancestral ties of friend-
ship and with whom we wish to remain at peace. Moreover, any such insist-
ence in a course of hectoring and insulting the Japanese renders nugatory
what we have accomplished in providing for excluding Japanese laborers,
skilled and unskilled I was informed very early, by men professing to speak
for, and as I have every reason to suppose actually speaking for, the labor
organizations of San Francisco, that the real objection was to the incoming
of Japanese laborers — this meaning, of course, to the incoming of the great
mass of Japanese. They asserted unequivocally that the trouble was not with
the attendance of the Japanese at the schools, that this was merely a symptom
of the irritation. They exprest their entire willingness to support any arrange-
ment which would secure the exclusion of all Japanese laborers. They stated
that if this object could be achieved they would not only be glad to have

6 1 1

the school question arranged on the lines I have indicated, but would be
entirely willing to have the Japanese similarly exclude American laborers
from Japan. All the people from California whom I have seen exprest ex-
actly similar sentiments. The careful and eminently impartial report of Sec-
retary Metcalf showed that this was the general feeling. The Senators and
Representatives of California in Congress were unanimous m asserting that
this was the feeling. The Mayor and the School Board were unanimous m
making the same statement. All of these men, whether m public or in private
life, united in stating that there was no purpose to maltreat or discriminate
against the Japanese that were here, but that there was a most mtense feeling
as to the absolute necessity of excluding all Japanese laborers, skilled or un-
skilled, and thus preventing the upgrowth on the Pacific Slope of a situation
which might lead to race conflict, and which would surely lead to the lower-
ing of the status of our own wageworkers.

With the objects thus set forth I was able to express my entire sympathy,
and my belief (which has been borne out by the facts) that the Japanese
Government would have no objection whatever to the carrying out of the
proposed policy and would ^help us in thus carrying it out. Accordingly we
past legislation which will enable us to secure the entire exclusion of Japa-
nese laborers — which of course means the exclusion of an enormous major-
ity of all the Japanese who now come here — the effectiveness of this legis-
lation being conditioned upon the willingness of the Japanese Government
to assent to our policy; and this willingness itself being conditioned upon
our carrying out in good faith the announced purpose of the Administration
at Washington, of the representatives from California in Congress, and of
the Mayor and the School Board of San Francisco, to see that there was no
discrimination against the Japanese as regards the schools — or of course as
regards other matters. The Japanese Government are entirely willing, if
their citizens who are here are treated as well as we treat the citizens of
European or South American countries, to refuse to grant passports to any
laborers to come to the United States. The legislation past by Congress en-
ables me to keep out of the country all Japanese laborers who do not have
such passports, that is, all who go to Hawaii, Mexico or Canada, or to any
other place, and then seek to come here. The success of the plan therefore
depends absolutely upon our treating Japan with the same fairness with
which we expect her to treat us in return. The legislation becomes meaning-
less and inoperative and cannot be made of avail save on condition that Japan
herself does not issue passports to her laborers to come here direct. This
action of Japan’s we can secure by agreement, but we cannot agree to se-
cure it unless we ourselves act in a spirit of fairness and right dealing.

It therefore appears that we now have absolute power to exclude all
Japanese laborers from this country, and that the only obstacle to thus se-
curing their exclusion lies in the action of those unwise and sinister agitators
who seek to delude the good people of California, and especially of San

6 1 2

Francisco, into a course of action which will defeat the very object they
profess to have in view. Every sincere believer m the exclusion of Japanese
laborers must feel that this object will have been attained by the action the
administration is prepared to take, and that it can only be upset by such ac-
tion by the State of California or by the city of San Francisco as will deprive
the national Government of the ability to enforce the legislation of Congress.
Of course we have to expect that the agitation will be kept up by those who
do not wish to see the Japanese excluded, who, on the contrary, wish to
prevent the success of any exclusion policy, so as to keep alive for their own
political benefit an agitation which is harmful to the country at large The
question is merely how many good people not thoroughly conversant with
the facts can be misled by these designing agitators.

The Administration is as earnestly and eagerly desirous of standing for
California’s needs as for the needs of every other section of the country. Not
only are the interests and honor of the men of the Pacific Slope dear to me,
but I am most anxious to meet, just so far as I can consistently with my duty
to the rest of the country, every one of their desires. One of the members of
my Cabinet is a Californian, devoted in his loyalty to every interest of his
great and beautiful State I have been able to bring about a solution of this
question which secures every particle of what the Californians wish, and
which secures it in a way which commands the hearty assent of the rest of
the nation; and this m a manner honorable to the United States and honor-
able to the proud nation of Japan, with whom it must ever be one of our
prime objects to remain on terms of self-respecting peace This peaceful and
honorable solution, which secures every object that California desires, is
threatened only by the unwise acts of certain Califormans. Should these acts
become effective, so as to bring to naught what has been done, all solution of
the matter will be indefinitely delayed. If the agreement is carried out, all
immigration of Japanese laborers will stop forthwith. If by the action of
certain Californians themselves we are prevented from carrying it out, this
immigration will go on unchecked. Nor, m my judgment, will this nation
ever consent to the exclusion of Japanese laborers save on substantially the
terms upon which we have now secured their exclusion, that is, upon con-
dition of treating the citizens of Japan who come hither just exactly as we
are content to have Japan treat our citizens who go to her shores, in other
words to give to Japanese students, travelers, scientific and professional men,
m short to all Japanese who are actually here, exactly the same treatment
that we should expect Americans in Japan to receive. Such method of pro-
cedure is the only just method. Moreover, it is the only method consonant
with maintaining friendly relations with the great Island Empire of Asia.
When everything that the people of California desire m this matter can thus
be secured by an honorable agreement which preserves the friendship be-
tween the two nations unbroken, the people of the United States as a whole
have the right to expect that the object thus completely attained shall be

613

attained in accordance with, and not in violation of, the steadfast policy of
the United States to deal honorably with other powers and to endeavor to
secure peace and friendship with them.

The exclusion of Japanese laborers from the United States will now be-
come an accomplished fact unless unwise action is taken, such as legislation
reflecting on the Japanese, which might deprive us of the necessary co-
operation of the Japanese government, of which we are otherwise assured.
If this is done it may be many years before exclusion can be secured. Sin-
cerely yours

P S. In looking at the copy of my letter of March 9th to you I see where
two verbal corrections were necessary. I accordingly enclose you copy con-
taining these two verbal corrections.

4267 * TO EUGENE E. SCHMITZ Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram Washington, March 12, 1907

I thank you and congratulate the people of the United States and especially
the people of California on the outcome. 1 I have directed dismissal of suit to
take place immediately upon the adoption of resolution by the Board of
Education as you request.

4268 • TO JAMES NORRIS GILLETT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 12, 1907

I thank you for your kind and prompt attention to my request. Passage of
a bill for submission to voters of California whether Japanese laborers shall
be excluded would interfere with my plans and make it more difficult for
me to accomplish thru the national Government what I am trying to
do m the way of Japanese labor exclusion 1 The assumption of power by
the voters of California to settle this question if assented to by the national
Government would immediately end all my negotiations with Japan for
friendly adjustment, because to negotiate a settlement we must have power
to settle, while on the other hand California cannot negotiate a treaty under
the Constitution. It is however perfectly clear that under the Constitution
only the national Government can settle the question of exclusion and such
a vote of California as is proposed would have to be treated as entirely
nugatory, while it would probably be regarded by those opposed to exclu-
sion as a threat to ignore the Constitutional power of the United States and
exclude Japanese m defiance of their treaty right to come in I earnestly

x The rescinding of the school board’s order

1 Gillett: on March 11 had wired Roosevelt that this measure was before the legisla-
ture and asked the President whether it would hamper negotiations with Japan
Like the other anti-Japanese bills, it was, on the advice of Gillett, dropped by the
legislature

* 614

deprecate the passage of any legislation affecting the Japanese. The national
Government now has the affair in hand and can in all human probability
secure the results that California desires, while at the same time preserving
unbroken the friendly relations between the United States and Japan. I have
the interests of California most deeply at heart I shall strive to accomplish
for California as for every other state or section of this country everything
that can conserve its honor and its interest. Any such action as that you
mention will merely hamper the National Government in the effort to se-
cure for California what only the national Government can secure.

4269 * TO JOSEPH LINCOL# STEFFENS Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 12, 1907

Dear Steffens: I send you back the card running as follows*

Jan 9th 1906
The White House
Washington

To any officer or employee of the Government

Please tell Mr. Lincoln Steffens anything whatever about the running of the
government by or under officers of the Executive, that you know (not incom-
patible with the public interests) and provided only that you tell him the truth —
no matter what it may be — I will see that you are not hurt

T. Roosevelt.

having inserted after the word “government” the words “by or under offi-
cers of the Executive ”

When I gave the card to you it did not occur to me that any of my
subordinates would want to tell about Senators and Congressmen. I need
not point out the reasons why it would be out of the question for me to
have my subordinates giving currency to stories about Senators and Con-
gressmen I am delighted to have them tell anything that goes on under the
Executive department because then they deal with matters to which it is my
business to attend. But it is not my business to be the means of circulating
stories about members of the Senate and House. If any Senator or Congress-
man does anything crooked and it comes within my power or duty to get at
him, I certainly will get at him, and I will not pardon any subordinate of
mine who fails to give me first-hand information which will enable me to
do so. But this is an entirely different matter from circulating stories on the
truth or falsity of which I have no power to pass.

The only material I wanted to see before you published it was anything
reflecting upon Senators or Congressmen which you obtained from my sub-
ordinates.

As soon as you return east let me see you. Sincerely yours

615

4270 * TO JAMES RUDOLPH GARFIELD Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 12, 1907

To the Secretary of the Interior: My order of February 13, 1907, relating to
the issuance of evidence of title under the public loan laws, is hereby can-
celed, for the reason that Congress did not appropriate an amount sufficient
to enable the Commissioner of the General Land Office to properly carry
out the purposes of that order, which were to have such examination made
of all applications for patent as would facilitate the issuance of title to bona
fide settlers and homemakers, would reduce illegal entries to a minimum, and
bring the work of the Land Office up to date. With the amount actually
appropriated it is not possible to carry out the order, or to provide with
certainty for the detection of fraud without causing unreasonable hardship
to bona fide settlers and homemakers.

In order to accomplish as much as can be accomplished with our present
means in preventing illegal acquisition of public lands, the Commissioner of
the General Land Office will detail all his available field and office force in
such manner, by concentration or otherwise, as will as effectively as is pos-
sible with the actual appropriation restrict fraud, enforce the existing laws,
and promote the bona fide settlement of public lands by homemakers.

4271 • TO JAMES RUDOLPH GARFIELD Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 12, 1907

To the Secretary of the Interior: In view of the reports made by the Geo-
logical Survey on the character and quality of lands covered by the orders
dated July 26, October 10, 13 and October 15, 1906, withdrawing certain
lands from coal entry and issued under my direction, you are directed to
modify those orders in the following particulars*

All lands which are now reported by the Geological Survey to contain
no workable coal shall be immediately released.

All lands which contain workable beds of coal and concerning which
the Geological Survey has sufficient information available to enable you to
properly classify them, shall be open to coal entry as soon as you shall
classify such lands and promulgate rules and regulations for making entry.

Hereafter other lands shall be similarly opened to entry as rapidly as
the Geological Survey can make proper examination thereof and report to
you.

I am advised that under this order about 28,000,000 acres of coal land
will immediately be opened to entry.

616

4272 • to John burroughs Roosevelt Mss .

Personal • Washington, March 12, 1907

Dear Oom John : It was very good of you to write me. I am so glad you are
getting well I did not know that you had been sick. I think Archie is really
on the road to recovery now.

You will be pleased to know that I finally proved unable to contain my-
self, and gave an interview or statement, to a very good fellow, in which I
sailed into Long and Jack London and one or two other of the more pre-
posterous writers of “unnatural” history. It will be coming out soon, but I
do not know in what magazine. 1

I know that as President I ought not to do this; but I was having an
awful time toward the end of the session and I felt I simply had to permit
myself some diversion. Faithfully yours

4273 * TO JOHN ALBERT SLEICHER Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 12, 1907

My dear Mr. Sleicher: Many thanks for your note, and give my love to
your little son who thought of Archie.

I think you are right about my meeting those railroad men. As you have
doubtless seen, Mr. Morgan called upon me last evening and requested that
I should do so 1 Of course the vital and essential thing is that the railroad
men should themselves announce that they have heartily and m good faith
accepted, and will work in accordance with, the Government policy. They
are now showing wisdom, 2 but it is unfortunately true that nine tenths of

1 The interview, with Edward B Clark, was published in Everybody's Magazine
m June 1907. Roosevelt supplemented it with his “Nature Fakers,” published in the
same journal m September 1907 Both are reprinted m Papers on Natural History ,
Nat Ed V, 367-383

1 Morgan, after the interview, told the press “At the request of many businessmen,
before leaving for Euiope, I came to Washington to see the President to discuss
the present business situation, particularly as affecting the railroads. I suggested to the
President that it would be greatly m the public interest if he would see Mr McCrea,
Mr Newman, Mr Mellen and Mr Hughitt and confer with them as to what steps
might be taken to allay the public anxiety as to the relations between the railroads
and the government. The President said he would be glad to see the gendemen
named, with this end m view” (Washington Star, March 12, 1907) Morgan also
told the President that, because of the freight-car situation, another bumper crop
might be disastrous, see No 4325

Maxwell Evarts believed that Morgan’s real purpose in seeing Roosevelt was to
frustrate Harriman, his financial rival This, however, seems less probable than
Morgan’s own explanation.

2 This “wisdom” was doubtless the opinion of B. F. Yoakum, chairman of the board
of directors of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, who had also seen Roosevelt,
on March 12 Yoakum told the President that the agitation m various states for a
reduction m freight rates had made it almost impossible for railroads to negotiate
loans. Therefore, he declared, “railroad men are willing that the supervision of the

617

wisdom is to be wise in time, and it would have been infinitely better had
they shown this wisdom a year ago. Sincerely yours

4274 * TO JAMES NORRIS GILLETT Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, March 14, 1907

My dear Governor: I congratulate you heartily on what you were able to
accomplish m preventing adverse legislation against the Japanese. I have no
question that we shall now be able to accomplish by direct negotiation with
Japan just what we desire. But primarily the situation is that now that Cali-
fornia has clearly put herself in the right, the national Government is able
to stand straight for California’s interests, and if it should prove necessary I
would myself immediately advocate the passage of an exclusion law. I could
not advocate the passage of any such law while we were ourselves at fault m
the treatment of the Japanese here, but just so long as they are treated right
in the schools, (as well as in other particulars) I am in the position of being
able wholeheartedly to champion California’s interest and to take any meas-
ures necessary to secure the exclusion of Japanese laborers We have the
entire right to secure such exclusion, just as Japan has the right to exclude
American laborers from her possessions, but it is in the first place exceedingly
desirable that the result should be attained without any interruption of the
cordial relations between Japan and the Umted States, and m the second
place, if this result is not (tho I firmly believe it will be) attainable in such
manner, then it is essential that we ourselves should be wholly free from
wrongdoing, so that we can say with absolute truth that we are treating the
Japanese only as we are entirely willing to be treated m return, and, while
insisting upon what is essential to our national interests and our national
self-preservation, are scrupulously safeguarding the rights of the Japanese.
As long as we were ourselves at fault in connection with the schools or
other matters, it was impossible for me to do this. Moreover, as I need
hardly point out, the question whether the treaty did or did not permit such
action as that taken by the School Board was not the mam point at issue.
Even supposing that under the treaty a State or a municipality has a techni-
cal right thus to injure or insult the people of any nation, the exercise of
such technical right puts all the United States morally m the wrong and
justifies the other nation m an attitude of strong resentment against the
Umted States. Moreover, my contention is (and in my judgment it is the
only contention that can properly be entertained) that no State or munici-
pality has such a technical right, for a treaty is the supreme law of the land,
and as it can only be made by the nation and not by any of the States — for

railroads be centralized in the national government” This, Yoakum felt, “would
restore confidence and give the people to understand that the railroads wish to
observe the laws, and it would stop the hostile legislation m various states” —
Washington Star, March 12, 1907

618

of course all foreign relations must be carried on thru the nation — the
power of the nation is absolute to decide upon the status of the citizens of
foreign countries in the United States, and this m every respect. Therefore,
my dear Governor, I congratulate not only the United States but especially
California upon the wisdom of her Legislature and her Governor in this mat-
ter; and I congratulate the City of San Francisco upon the wisdom of her
School Board Sincerely yours

4275 TO THEODORE ELIJAH BURTON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 14, 1907

My dear Sir . Numerous commercial organizations of the Mississippi Valley
have presented petitions asking that I appoint a Commission to prepare and
report a comprehensive plan for the improvement and control of the river
systems of the United States. I have decided to comply with these requests
by appointing an Inland Waterways Commission, and I have asked the fol-
lowing gentlemen to act upon it. I shall be much gratified if you will con-
sent to serve.

Hon. Theo. E. Burton, Chairman
Senator Francis G» Newlands
Senator William Warner
Hon. John H. Bankhead
General Alexander Mackenzie
Mr. W. J. McGee
Mr. F. H. Newell
Mr. Gifford Pinchot
Hon. Herbert Knox Smith

In creating this Commission I am influenced by broad considerations of
National policy. The control of our navigable waterways lies with the Fed-
eral Government, and carries with it corresponding responsibilities and obli-
gations. The energy of our people has hitherto been largely directed toward
industrial development connected with field and forest and with coal and
iron, and some of these sources of material and power are already largely
depleted, while our inland waterways as a whole have thus far received
scant attention. It is becoming clear that our streams should be considered
and conserved as great natural resources. Works designed to control our
waterways have thus far usually been undertaken for a single purpose, such
as the improvement of navigation, the development of power, the irrigation
of and lands, the protection of lowlands from floods, or to supply water for
domestic and manufacturing purposes. While the rights of the people to
these and similar uses of water must be respected, the time has come for
merging local projects and uses of the inland waters m a comprehensive plan
designed for the benefit of the entire country. Such a plan should consider

6 1 9

and include all the uses to which streams may be put, and should bring to-
gether and co-ordinate the points of view of all users of water. The task
involved in the full and orderly development and control of the river sys-
tems of the United States is a great one, yet it is certainly not too great for us
to approach. The results which it seems to promise are even greater.

It is common knowledge that the railroads of the United States are no
longer able to move crops and manufactures rapidly enough to secure the
prompt transaction of the business of the Nation, and there is small prospect
of immediate relief. Representative railroad men point out that the products
of the northern interior States have doubled in ten years, while the railroad
facilities have increased but one-eighth, and there is reason to doubt whether
any development of the railroads possible in the near future will suffice to
keep transportation abreast of production. There appears to be but one com-
plete remedy — the development of a complementary system of transporta-
tion by water. The present congestion affects chiefly the people of the Mis-
sissippi Valley, and they demand relief. When the congestion of which they
complain is relieved, the whole Nation will share the good results.

While rivers are natural resources of the first rank, they are also liable
to become destructive agencies, endangering life and property, and some of
our most notable engineering enterprises have grown out of efforts to con-
trol them. It was computed by Generals Humphreys and Abbot half a cen-
tury ago that the Mississippi alone sweeps into its lower reaches and the
Gulf 400,000,000 tons of floating sediment each year (about twice the
amount of material to be excavated m opening the Panama Canal), besides
an enormous but unmeasured amount of earth-salts and soil-matter carried
in solution. This vast load not only causes its channels to clog and flood the
lowlands of the lower river, but renders the flow capricious and difficult to
control. Furthermore, the greater part of the sediment and soil-matter is
composed of the most fertile material of the fields and pastures drained by
the smaller and larger tributaries. Any plan for utilizing our inland water-
ways should consider floods and their control by forests and other means,
the protection of bottomlands from injury by overflows, and uplands from
loss by soil-wash, the physics of sediment-charged waters and the physical
or other ways of purifying them, the construction of dams and locks, not
only to facilitate navigation but to control the character and movement of
the waters, and should look to the full use and control of our running waters
and the complete artificialization of our waterways for the benefit of our
people as a whole.

It is not possible properly to frame so large a plan as this for the control
of our rivers without taking account of the orderly development of other
natural resources. Therefore, I ask that the Inland Waterways Commission
shall consider the relations of the streams to the use of all the great perma-
nent natural resources and their conservation for the making and mainte-
nance of prosperous homes.

620

Any plan for utilizing our inland waterways, to be feasible, should rec-
ognize the means for executing it already in existence, both m the Federal
Departments of War, Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce and Labor, and
in the States and their subdivisions; and it must not involve unduly burden-
some expenditures from the National Treasury. The cost will necessarily
be large m proportion to the magnitude of the benefits to be conferred, but
it will be small m comparison with the $17,000,000,000 of capital now in-
vested m steam railways in the United States — an amount that would have
seemed enormous and incredible half a century ago. Yet the investment has
been a constant source of profit to the people and without it our industrial
progress would have been impossible.

The questions which will come before the Inland Waterways Commis-
sion must necessarily relate to every part of the United States and affect
every interest within its borders. Its plans should be considered in the light
of the widest knowledge of the country and its people, and from the most
diverse points of view. Accordingly, when its work is sufficiently advanced,
I shall add to the Commission certain consulting members, with whom I
shall ask that its recommendations shall be fully discust before they are sub-
mitted to me. The reports of the Commission should include both a general
statement of the problem and recommendations as to the manner and means
of attacking it. 1 Sincerely yours

4276 * to james speyer Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, March 15, 1907

My dear Mr. Speyer: I have your letter of the 14th instant. All I can say is
that Secretaries Cortelyou and Root came over, as did Assistant Secretary
Bacon, and went over the whole situation with me. I am not an expert in
financial affairs Secretary Cortelyou is perfectly clear that what he did, and
at the time he did, was the only wise thing that could be done Messrs Root
and Bacon agreed with him. I suppose that anything they did was sure to
excite criticism. 1 Sincerely yours

x The commission submitted its significant report in February 1908. For a brief
summary of the commission’s work, see Pinchot, Breaking New Ground , pp. 326-333

1 Speyer had called on Roosevelt on March 13 to urge support for railroad securities
and the market m general After his visit, Roosevelt conferred with Root, Bacon,
Cortelyou, Knapp, and Lane Cortelyou then issued a Treasury Department state-
ment noting that he had fixed “no time” for the withdrawal of the $30,000,000
deposited by the Treasury m national banks the previous September Wall Street
had hoped that Cortelyou would also announce his plans for deposit, in accordance
with the Aldrich Law, of the $300,000,000 federal customs duties Of this sum,
Cortelyou, without comment, deposited only $71,000,000

62 I

4277 * to the interstate commerce commission Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 15, 1907

Gentlemen: In view of certain facts that have been brought out in connec-
tion with your recent investigation concerning the consolidation and com-
bination of the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific and other roads, and m view
of certain complaints and inquiries addrest to me concerning the large issues
of stock of various other roads, it seems to me that the time is ripe for your
body to report to me specific recommendations on various points where I
think the powers of the Government, acting thru your Commission, should
be greatly increased.

In the first place, I feel that the time has come when there should be in
the possession of the Government full knowledge of the real value or worth
of and the indebtedness of the various railroads of the country. I wish to
know the physical valuation of the roads, in addition of course to their
nominal valuation. In this connection it is, I suppose, almost unnecessary to
point out that the valuation of the terminals must not be divorced from the
valuation of the other railroad property, tho it should be separately stated.
The knowledge as to the real and nominal valuation will not only be of
worth in dealing with the question of rates, but also in dealing with the
next point as to which I desire your specific advice.

This next point is as to what specific measure should be recommended
by me to the Congress for the purpose of securing supervision and control
by action thru your body of the capitalization of the stock and bond issues
of the various railroads. Of the great issues of stocks and bonds now going
on, some doubtless are for entirely legitimate purposes, others may be for
trading or speculative purposes. This should no longer be allowed. Exactly
as the developments in the insurance investigations a year ago showed the
necessity of a far more rigid governmental control of insurance companies,
so your investigations have proved the necessity of a far more rigid govern-
mental control of railroad companies. I do not believe in the sweeping and
indiscriminate prohibition of all combinations which has been so marked and
as I think so mischievous a feature of our anti-trust legislation. I believe that
certain combinations are necessary to the proper conduct of business. But I
believe that they should be entered into only subject to the approval of your
Commission and subject to their publication in detail. With these two con-
ditions fulfilled it would be out of the question for the combination to do
hurt, and as your body has pointed out in its report it is impossible to carry
on the business of the country save by certain of the traffic combinations
which the law condemns. In other words I should make the approval of your
Commission a condition precedent to the establishment of the combination
instead of permitting the combination to be entered into and then action to
be taken to test its propriety.

I should like from your further careful study of the question a fairly

622

comprehensive outline of some system of national incorporation or national
license which would give the national government far-reaching control over
all railroads engaged m interstate commerce. I desire from you on this point
as well as upon the others that I raise information in such detail as will en-
able me definitely to indicate to the Congress the exact kind of law demanded
by the situation.

I desire to know the relations of the big railway corporations to the
smaller corporations they control and also to the water transportation compa-
nies which they control. I also desire to know as far as you are able to fur-
nish the information, the ownership of the great industrial enterprises along
the lines of the great railroads, in so far as these great railroads have interest
in or ownership of these industrial enterprises — mining, manufacturing or
others. It may be that in certain cases no harm comes from such ownership
just as m certain cases it may be that no harm comes from the ownership or
control of the smaller railroad corporations by the larger ones. But I desire
to get from your Commission its judgment on these points and any recom-
mendations it may desire to make as to specific legislation which will give
to the government a sufficient power of supervision and control to prevent
the acquisition for improper purposes or by improper means or the manage-
ment m an improper manner by any great railroad corporation of any lesser
railroad corporation or industrial enterprise. I desire to know how far it is
advisable to go m forbidding outright such holdings and how far our aim
can best be met by permitting such holdings subject to the previous approval
of the Commission and to the fact of the holding being made public.

I also desire from you a report as to what specific legislation should be
past to minimize the terrible loss of life now constantly occurring thru acci-
dents upon the railroads and furthermore what changes, if any, should be
made in the legislation now on the statute books or which may be put on
the statute books as regards the liability of employers for accidents to their
employees and limiting the hours of labor of such employees on the railroads
of the country engaged m interstate commerce

In short, I desire from you recommendations definite and precise in char-
acter to secure a far more thoro-going supervision and control than we now
have over the great agencies of interstate transportation 1 Sincerely yours

1 The Annual Report of the Interstate Commence Commission , 1907 (Washington,
1907), sustained Roosevelt’s views on the subjects covered m this letter and recom-
mended specific legislative and administrative remedies, see especially pp. 10, 21,
23, 126-135, 149 Thus sustained, the President, m his annual message of 1907, urged
Congress to pass laws m regard to each of those matters, State Papers, Nat Ed. XV,
410-433 They were among the central issues of debate throughout the 60th Congress.

623

4278 ' TO JAMES WILSON

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, March 16, 1907

My dear Mr . Secretary: I have been going all over the papers you submitted
to me together with an argument of Senator McCumber’s. I confess I am
very much puzzled. It seems to me that your pages 8, 9 and 10 cover the
matter. From these it appears that two or more whiskies are sometimes mixt
together and the mixture sold as a blended whisky. There is no question,
therefore, that the label “blended whisky” should apply to such a mixture.
As you say, there ought to be some way of informing the consumer whether
he is furnished a mixture of two whiskies, or of whisky and neutral spirit or
grain distillate, for the Pure Food law is largely a labeling law, and “mis-
branding” is to use a false or deceptive label — that is one deceptive to the
average consumer. As you point out, if the average consumer receives a mix-
ture of whisky and neutral spirit labeled “blended whisky,” he will naturally
conclude that two or more whiskies of different ages or distillations have
been added together. You state that it may be questioned whether, under the
law, if we allow the use of the word “blend” for the mixture of whisky and
neutral spirit any additional words can be required, but that the Solicitor
thinks they can be required. It seems to me very desirable that the matter
should be so determined that the question of our power to add these descrip-
tive words cannot arise. You further say that it is imperatively necessary m
order to prevent misbranding that there shall be some difference in the label
to permit the consumer to tell at once that a blended whisky consisting of a
mixture of two whiskies is different from a mixture of whisky and neutral
spirit.

Taking all these considerations together it seems to me that only a mix-
ture of whiskies should be labeled “blended whisky”, and that we should
use the words “whisky, compound of grain distillates,” or “whisky, com-
pounded with gram distillates” to give notice to the consumer that a mixture
of whisky and neutral spirit is not a blend of two whiskies. It has further
been suggested to me that this type of label should only apply to a mixture
of straight whisky with neutral spirit derived from gram; and that there
should be a further label of “whisky, compound with neutral spirit,” to
characterize a mixture of straight whisky with neutral spirit derived from
molasses, sawdust, or any basis except grain. What do you think of this^

I went over this matter very carefully with certain medical men, includ-
ing a New York physician of note, who has had much experience with
straight, blended, and compounded whiskies, and who of course is wholly
unprejudiced as regards what action is taken. He says that the whiskies with
which we are concerned are certainly compound whiskies, but that they are
whiskies preferred by a great many men, and are the only whiskies sold by
some leading grocers and the only whiskies to be obtained m some leading
hotels and clubs. He believes that the above labels would recognize clearly

6 24

and accurately the exact facts, and he does not believe that any damage
would come to the sellers of the compound whiskies, because in a very few
months the customers who prefer them would grow entirely accustomed to
the terminology, would pay no more heed to the word “compound” than
the word “blend,” and would simply take the whisky they prefer. Sincerely
yours

4279 • TO GEORGE VON LENGERKE MEYER Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 16, 1907

My dear Mr . Meyer: In any appointments of importance in Ohio I think it
advisable now that the judgment of Secretary Taft should be obtained; and
if there is any difficulty with either of the Senators you might mention that
by my direction Mr. Taft is to be consulted as I feel a peculiar regard for his
judgment and think it wise to follow it. 1 Sincerely yours

4280 • TO THOMAS NELSON PAGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 18, 1907

My dear Page: During the last two weeks I have received dozens of sugges-
tions or requests that I invite financiers to see me and confer on the situation.
In this mail with yours, for instance, comes a request from St. Clair McKel-
way that I shall see a big man that he has named, and within fifteen minutes I
have had a suggestion verbally that I ask two other big men, one a New
Yorker and the other a Philadelphian, to come and see me. Now, I do not
think it is wise to invite anyone, because I would then find it very difficult
to discriminate and I should have to be inviting scores and probably hun-
dreds of men from all over the country, but if the gentlemen you mention, or
any others, wish to see me, I shall always be glad to see them. My only sug-
gestion would be that they try to get fairly well formulated what they wish
to say before they come up to see me. 1
With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4281 TO ERNEST MARK POLLARD Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, March 19, 1907

My dear Mr . Pollard: 1 I have received your letter of March 5th. I feel that
it is due not only to you but to the other western Congressmen, the Con-

1 Roosevelt sent a similar letter to Cortelyou, whose department, with Meyer’s, had
cognizance over almost all the executive appointments in Ohio for which Taft’s
“judgment” deserved “a peculiar regard.”

1 Increasingly reluctant to see railroad men, Roosevelt had refused to invite to
Washington the four executives for whom Morgan had suggested a conference As
a group they had not solicited an invitation, but President Mellen requested and
received an appointment for March 19

1 Ernest Mark Pollard, Republican congressman from Nebraska, 1905-1909.

' 625

gressmen from the interior who voted for the ship subsidy bill, that I should
express to you, not only for you but for all of them also, the reasons why
I think you have rendered a great and patriotic service.

At the outset let me emphasize the fact that the present proposed ship
subsidy bill has nothing whatever m common with certain previous measures
of the same name There were well-founded objections to certain features
of these previous measures, but in the present measure all these objectionable
features have been eliminated. I should heartily favor the present measure m
any event; but the experiences of Secretary Root on his trip to South
America, and the course of events on the Pacific, seem to me to render it of
the utmost consequence to pass the proposed bill. As a matter of fact, my
only objection to it is that it does not go far enough. I personally, for in-
stance, would like to see a line to South America from one of our Gulf ports.

I feel that you men from the West who stood by the cause of American
shipping in supporting the ship subsidy bill deserve the same praise that
should be accorded to those men of the seacoast regions who voted for,
and by their votes succeeded m establishing, our present system of national
irrigation in the States from Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas westward to
California, Oregon and Washington. At that time the argument was made
to me by many men representing the country east of the Mississippi that it
was not fair to ask their support for a measure purely to benefit the States
of the Great Plains and the Rockies. My answer to them was that anything
that benefited a part of this country ultimately benefited all of it, and that
we were in honor bound to support any such measure even if our particular
locality was not affected The same argument applies now m reference to this
shipping bill. It is deeply discreditable to us as a nation that our shipping
should be driven from the high seas, and it has thus been driven partly be-
cause our steamship lines are quite unable to compete with foreign steam-
ship lines, English, German, Japanese, French, which are heavily subsidized
by their governments, and partly because the high standard of w r ages and of
living which we exact for our seamen puts our shipmasters and ship-owners
at a disadvantage when forced to compete even with unsubsidized ships of
foreign powers. This difference m standards, and the subsidization of our
foreign competitors, taken together, have created an obstacle to the develop-
ment of our shipping which is insurmountable except by a subsidy, and this
obstacle must be cleared away as we would clear away a bar from the mouth
of a river

I felt that the loss of the ship subsidy bill at the last session of Congress
was a real blow to our country, and that it was particularly to be regretted
because it has tended to dampen some of the enthusiasm for closer relations
with this country which Secretary Root’s visit aroused in South America. The
following cable from our Minister to Uruguay shows how the failure to pass
the bill is regretted in some of the most prosperous and progressive of the
great commonwealths of South America:

626 •

Montevideo, March 12, 1907.

Root,

Washington.

Great disappointment felt in River Plate countries over failure of shippmg bill
to become law. The desire is so great for direct communication with United
States that I believe agreement could be made in advance which would insure
substantial co-operation on the part of River Plate countries

O’Brien

In my message at the opening of the last session of Congress I spoke on
this matter as follows.

Let me once again call the attention of the Congress to two subjects con-
cerning which I have frequently before communicated with them. One is the
question of developing American shipping. I trust that a law embodying in sub-
stance the views, or a major part of the views, exprest m the report on this
subject made before the House at its last session, will be past. I am well aware that
m former years objectionable measures have been proposed in reference to the
encouragement of American shipping, but it seems to me that the proposed
measure is as nearly unobjectionable as any can be It will of course benefit
primarily our seaboard States, such as Marne, Louisiana, and Washington, but what
benefits part of our people in the end benefits all, just as Government aid to
irrigation and forestry m the West is really of benefit, not only to the Rocky
Mountain States, but to all our country. If it prove impracticable to enact a law for
the encouragement of shipping generally, then at least provision should be made
for better communication with South America, notably for fast mail lines to the
chief South American ports. It is discreditable to us that our business people, for
lack of direct communication m the shape of lines of steamers with South America,
should m that great sister continent be at a disadvantage compared to the
business people of Europe.

On January 23d I followed this up with a special message running as
follows*

To the Senate and House of Representatives

I call your attention to the great desirability of enacting legislation to help
American shipping and American trade by encouraging the building and running
of lines of large and swift steamers to South America and the Orient

The urgent need of our country’s making an effort to do something like its
share of its own carrying trade on the ocean has been called to our attention in
striking fashion by the experiences of Secretary Root on his recent South Amer-
ican tour The result of these experiences he has set forth m his address before the
Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, at Kansas City, Mo, on November 20
last, an address so important that it deserves the careful study of all public men.

The facts set forth by Mr. Root are striking, and they cannot but arrest the
attention of our people. The great continent to the south of us, which should be
knit to us by the closest commercial ties, is hardly m direct commercial communi-
cation with us at all, its commercial relations being almost exclusively with
Europe. Between all the principal South American ports and Europe fines of
swift and commodious steamers, subsidized by their home governments, ply
regularly. There is no such line of steamers between these ports and the United
States.

In consequence, our shipping in South American ports is almost a negligible

627

quantity, for instance, in the year ending June 30, 1905, there entered the port of
Rio de Janeiro over 3,000 steamers and sailing vessels from Europe, but from the
United States no steamers and only seven sailing vessels, two of which were in
distress. One prime reason for this state of things is the fact that those who now
do business on the sea do business m a world not of natural competition, but of
subsidized competition. State aid to steamship lines is as much a part of the
commercial system of today as State employment of consuls to promote business.
Our commercial competitors m Europe pay in the aggregate some twenty-five
millions a year to their steamship hues — Great Britain paying nearly seven mil-
lions, Japan pays between three and four millions. By the proposed legislation the
United States will still pay relatively less than any one of our competitors pays.
Three years ago the Trans-Mississippi Congress formally set forth as axiomatic
the statement that every ship is a missionary of trade, that steamship lines work
for their own countries just as railroad lines work for their terminal points, and
that it is as absurd for the United States to depend upon foreign ships to distribute
its products as it would be for a department store to depend upon wagons of a
competing house to deliver its goods. This statement is the literal truth.

Moreover it must be remembered that American ships do not have to contend
merely against 'the subsidization of their foreign competitors. The higher wages
and the greater cost of maintenance of American officers and crews make it
almost impossible for our people who do busmess on the ocean to compete on
equal terms with foreign ships unless they are protected somewhat as their fellow-
countrymen who do business on land are protected. We cannot as a country
afford to have the wages and the manner of life of our seamen cut down; and the
only alternative, if we are to have seamen at all, is to offset the expense by giving
some advantage to the ship itself.

The proposed law which has been introduced in Congress is in no sense
experimental. It is based on the best and most successful precedents, as, for in-
stance, on the recent Cunard contract with the British Government. As far as
South America is concerned, its aim is to provide from the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts better American lines to the great ports of South America than the present
European lines. The South American Republics now see only our warships Under
this bill our trade friendship will be made evident to them The bill proposes to
build large-sized steamers of 16-knot speed. There are nearly 200 such steamships
already m the world’s foreign trade, and over three-fourths of them now draw
subsidies — postal or admiralty or both. The bill will encourage our shipyards,
which are almost as necessary to the national defense as battleships, and the
efficiency of which depends in large measure upon their steady employment m
large construction. The proposed bill is of importance to our Navy, because it
gives a considerable fleet of auxiliary steamships, such as is now almost wholly
lacking, and also provides for an effective naval reserve.

The bill provides for fourteen steamships, subsidized to the extent of over a
million and a half, from the Atlantic coast all to run to South American ports. It
provides on the Pacific coast for 22 steamers subsidized to the extent of two
millions and a quarter, some of these to run to South America, most of them to
Manila, Australia, and Asia. Be it remembered that while the ships will be owned
on the coasts, the cargoes will largely be supplied by the interior, and that the
bill will benefit the Mississippi Valley as much as it benefits the seaboard.

I have laid stress upon the benefit to be expected from our trade with South
America The lines to the Orient are also of vital importance. The Commercial
possibilities of the Pacific are unlimited, and for national reasons it is imperative
that we should have direct and adequate communication by American lines with
Hawaii and the Philippines. The existence of our present steamship lines on the

628

Pacific is seriously threatened by the foreign subsidized lines. Our communica-
tions with the markets of Asia and with our own possessions m the Philippines, tho
less than our communications with Australia, should depend not upon foreign,
but upon our own steamships. The Southwest and the Northwest should alike be
served by these lines, and if this is done they will also give to the Mississippi
Valley thruout its entire length the advantage of all transcontinental railways
running to the Pacific coast. To fail to establish adequate lines on the Pacific is
equivalent to proclaiming to the world that we have neither the ability nor the
disposition to contend for our rightful share of the commerce of the Orient, nor
yet to protect our interests m the Philippines It would surely be discreditable for
us to surrender to our commercial rivals the great commerce of the Orient, the
great commerce we should have with South America, and even our own com-
munications with Hawaii and the Philippines.

I earnestly hope for the enactment of some law like the bill in question.

For the reasons given above I feel that the whole country owes a debt
of gratitude for the entirely disinterested support which you and those who
felt like you have given to this measure, and it will be a misfortune to the
nation if it does not become a law. I append Secretary Root’s address to the
Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, m which he discusses the matter at
length and gives what I deem unanswerable arguments in favor of the pro-
posed law Sincerely yours

4282 * TO RICHARD ROGERS BOWKER Roosevelt MSS.

Private Washington, March 22, 1907

My dear Mr. Bowker: Your letter concerning your trip to Panama gives me
genuine pleasure. Let me at the outset say that you will do me a real favor
if you will write more in detail the cons as well as the pros about the work
down there 1 Nothing is more helpful than criticism, provided the criticism
is in good faith, and it is evident yours is simply a means to help m the con-
structive work — that is, it is honest, intelligent, and meant to aid instead of
to hamper

If what you say concerning Stevens’ having insomnia is true, it would
explain much. But it simply would be impossible to retain him. I could only
do so if I was sure that he had been suffering from insomnia and that he
could be, or was, cured It was becoming well-nigh impossible to get on with

1 Bowker’s reply dealt almost wholly with Stevens’ resignation Stevens, he felt, had
no real intention of quitting the canal when he wrote his letter of January 30 (see
No 4242) In Bowker’s opinion, that “letter, a most unofficial kind of resignation,
seems ‘the thinking out loud’ of a blunt man who trusts the man he is writing to
and forgets perhaps under nervous strain, that he is writing an official document.”
The resignation had been, Bowker continued, a severe blow to “the morale on the
Isthmus” He therefore suggested that Roosevelt publish a statement expressing an
appreciation of Stevens’ outstanding work and stating that his resignation had left
him no alternative — a suggestion the President did not follow

Bowker ended his letter by saying that his criticisms of conditions on the Isthmus
were minor and that they nearly all concerned the bureaucratic rigidity of Jack-
son Smith’s commissary department which did not attempt to modify its regulations
to make use of local food supplies

629

him. For instance, for your private information I may mention that he had
been steadily growing more and more jealous of Dr. Gorgas; had objected
to his remaining on the Commission, had hinted that he ought to be removed
from the Isthmus, and was making it evident that sooner or later either he
or Dr. Gorgas would have to go. The contract was his idea In all its essentials
his plan about it was followed. On December 12th he held with me, Root,
and Taft the final discussion, at which he, as well as Taft, Root and myself,
agreed that we had put it in good shape — in fact, m the best shape possible;
that it represented the right policy and that bids under it should be asked
for the next day. He then went back to the Isthmus and m five weeks was
advising us to reject all of the bids because he regarded the contract plan as
a bad plan. I have never received the slightest information from him that
would justify or even partially explain his total change of front, and I am
left to guess at the meaning For your own private information I enclose you
copies of his letter of resignation, of my answer to it and of his answer
thereto. I am still utterly at sea as to the real causes of his resigning. If he
were a drinking man or one addicted to the use of drugs, the answer would
be simple. As it is, I am inclined to think that it must have been insomnia or
something of the kind, due to his tropical surroundings, and acting on what
it is equally evident was already a queer nature. He has done admirably. I
think his successors will do no less admirable work. Sincerely yours

4283 * TO WILLIAM H. STEAD Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, March 23, 1907

My dear Mr. Attorney General : 1 1 am greatly obliged to you. I look forward
to hearing from you again, especially about the general corporation policy.
I thank you for your speech. You and I think substantially alike on these
matters.

Will you present my warm regards to the Governor? I hope that you
and he understand that if it had not been for diphtheria in The White House
I should have expected you both to dinner or lunch as suited you best. I very
deeply appreciate the willingness that the Governor and you showed, in the
middle of your arduous duties, to come on and go over these corporation —
and especially these railroad — matters with me. I felt ashamed to put such
a burden upon your courtesy, but I am exceedingly anxious to get from two
or three Governors of States and two or three Attorneys General of States

1 Attorney General William H Stead and Governor Deneen of Illinois, at Roosevelt’s
request, had conferred with the President about state and federal railroad policies
They also discussed the financial transactions of Harnman and his associates m
Chicago and Alton Railroad securities Of questionable legality, these operations,
revealed by an Interstate Commerce Commission investigation, fell under Illinois
rather than federal jurisdiction.

630

in whose judgment I can entirely trust a full view of the matter as it strikes
them.

With great regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4284 * TO JACOB HENRY SCHIFF Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, March 25, 1907

My dear Mr. Schiff: I have your letter of the 24th instant, which I have
carefully noted. Will you look at pages 12 to 14 of the enclosed copy of my
last annual message to Congress? It is difficult for me to understand, m view
of this and my many other utterances like it, why there should be this belief
m Wall Street that I am a wild-eyed revolutionist. I cannot condone wrong,
but I certainly do not intend to do aught save what is beneficial to the man
of means who acts squarely and fairly. When I see you I will explain at
length why I do not think it advantageous from any standpoint for me to
ask any railroad man to call upon me. I can only say to you, as I have said to
Mr. Morgan when he suggested that he would* like to have certain of them
call upon me (a suggestion which they refused to adopt, by the way) that
it would be a pleasure to me to see any of them at any time. Sooner or later
I think they will realize that m their opposition to me for the last few years
they have been utterly mistaken, even from the standpoint of their own in-
terests; and that nothing better for them could be devised than the laws I
have striven and am striving to have enacted. I wish to do everything m my
power to aid every honest businessman, and the dishonest businessman I wish
to punish simply as I would punish the dishonest man of any type. More-
over, I am not desirous of avenging what has been done wrong in the past,
especially when the punishment would be apt to fall upon innocent third
parties, my prime object is to prevent injustice and work equity for the
future

With great regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4285 * TO JAMES DUVAL PHELAN Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Washington, March 25, 1907

My dear Mr. Phelan: I am much interested m your letter and m the sketch
about Judge Coffey. 1 I have been a good deal puzzled by the attack made
upon Van Fleet 2 as a servant of Harriman. I happen to be able to bear per-
sonal testimony on this point. You doubtless remember that the Harriman
interests started to get control of the Republican delegation to the National
Convention from California three years ago. Well, Van Fleet, who was

1 James Vincent Coffey, California Democrat, for thirty-six years judge of the
superior court of San Francisco, where he won national fame for his lucid prose and
his incisive opinions on probate administration

2 William Cary Van Fleet was appointed judge for the Northern District of
California m April 1907

631

national committeeman, was one of the men with whom I got into touch and
who in short order upset the movement. At that time he did not hesitate for
one moment to stand against the Harnman set, and for me.

Naturally, I am immensely interested in the recent developments m San
Francisco. Is there any chance of your being here soon? Franklin Lane is
doing very well indeed. Sincerely yours

4286 - TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 25, 1907

To the Secretary of War: I am by no means satisfied that the practice of the
War Department in this matter of historical research is correct. I am by no
means certain that Congress should go on printing, as it has, the Civil War
records 1 On the contrary, I think that at least nine-tenths, probably ninety-
five per cent, of the printing done of the records of the Civil War — that is,
of the Union and Confederate armies — represents as colossal and unjustifia-
ble a bit of extravagance of the kind as this Government has ever gone into.
At least ninety per cent of what has been thus published is of absolutely no
value; and to print it is ludicrous. All that is of any possible value in any
average twenty volumes that have been published could have been put in
one, or at the most two; and I do not think we have ever seen a more absurd
action of the Government than its conduct m publishing cart loads of these
volumes to lumber up libraries for no conceivable good purpose. The very
voluminousness of any such printed record prevents any real benefit being
obtained therefrom. The only good that would have been served by printing
these records would have been after a most careful sifting out of the trivial
and valueless stuff which now forms the enormous majority of the subject
matter of the volumes. I think it far better that this trivial and valueless stuff
should not be printed but should be kept where the rare, occasional investiga-
tor who really can get something good out of it, can have access to it under
proper conditions. I am certain that it is an entirely wrong policy to print
these immense masses of stuff and at the same time to prevent access by
historians to the records until the stuff has been printed. Great care of course
should be exercised in admitting people, but either some should be admitted
to investigate for themselves, or a corps of men should be provided to make
the investigations for a reasonable charge in money. I do not care what sys-
tem is adopted, but the present system is absurd. I should emphatically pro-
test against Congress going into any more useless publication; that is, I should
protest against any publication being permitted without a careful sifting of

1 The War Department completed the printing of the Official Records of the Union
and Confederate Armies m 1901 and was about finished with the publication of the
roster of officers and enlisted men m the two armies It now proposed to publish
the records of all earlier wars “in the same way as the records of the Civil War
were published ” A bill to carry out a part of this plan, introduced at the following
session of Congress, was laid aside after an adverse report by Taft

632

what is published. This sifting will leave an immense amount of chaff which
has no business to be printed m its entirety, but which it would be entirely
proper to permit an expert to hunt thru to obtain something of slight value
to him. Sincerely yours

4287 ■ TO HENRY LEE HIGGINSON Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 28, 1907

My dear Major Higgmson: I am in receipt of your letter of the 26th instant.

I have not answered your telegram and letters because it has been a little
difficult to know what to say. Very many people have written and tele-
graphed me, most of them uttering complaints, many of them giving advice
which has generally been contradictory.

In your present letter you ask that real assistance be given to the money
market, but you do not say what that assistance should be. I was under the
impression that Mr Cortelyou had rendered all that assistance that it was
possible to render at this time. You then say that the fear of investors m
railway securities must be dispelled, and you say that the people now have
the impression that the greatest business interests (those of railroads) are
imperiled. I am inclined to think that this is the case. If so, the responsibility
lies primanly and overwhelmingly upon the railway and corporation people
— that is, the manipulators of railroad and other corporation stocks — who
have been guilty of such scandalous irregularities during the last few years.
Secondarily it lies, of course, with the agitators and visionaries to whom the
misdeeds of the conscienceless speculators I have named gave the chance to
impress the people as a whole. Not one word of mine; not one act, adminis-
trative or legislative, of the National Government, is responsible, directly or
indirectly, in any degree whatsoever for the present situation. I trust I have
stated this with sufficient emphasis, for it would be quite impossible to over-
emphasize it. Two years ago the railroads were all clamoring against the
passage of the rate law — an act of folly on their part and on the part of
their friends and abettors which cannot be too harshly stigmatized. The only
hope for the honest railroad man, for the honest investor, is m the extension
and perfection of the system inaugurated by that law, in the absolute carry-
ing out of the law at present and in its strengthening, if possible, at the next
session of the Congress so as to make it even more effective. I will not deviate
one hand’s breadth from the course I have marked out, and anything I
may say will contain this explicit statement Moreover, it is an act of sheer
folly and shortsightedness on the part of the railway men not to realize that
I am best serving their interests m following out precisely this course. I have
never seen more foolish and hysterical speeches and acts than those of the
so-called industrial leaders during the past few months. At one moment they
yell that I am usurping the rights of the States. The next they turn around
m literally a panic frenzy and beseech me to make some public utterance for-

633

bidding the States to do the very things they have just asserted the States
alone had the power to do.

You are from Massachusetts. I assume that you are familiar with the rail-
way and corporation acts of Massachusetts. If so, you of course realize that
I am trying to get the National Government to adopt legislation such as Mas-
sachusetts now has on its statute books, such as England now has on its
statute books. How any sane man can construe this into an attack on capital
I fail to see. As for the suits or other executive actions I have undertaken, I
can only say that as yet every individual one of them has been entirely right
and proper, and it is of course out of the question to ask me to announce that
swindlers will not be prosecuted. Very respectfully yours

4288 • TO RAY STANNARD BAKER Roosevelt MSS.

Personal: Private Washington, March 30, 1907

My dear Mr. Baker: I am genuinely imprest with your article on the Atlanta
riots. 1 It helped me in more than one way to a clearer understanding of the
situation. Sometime I should like to see you. I have been really deprest over
this Brownsville (Texas) business — not so much by the attitude of the
colored troops themselves, altho that was sufficiently ominous, but by the
attitude taken by the enormous majority of the colored people m regard to
the matter. I had never really believed there was much justification for the
claim of the Southern whites that the decent Negroes would actively or
passively shield their own wrongdoers, or at least I had never realized the
extent to which the statement was true, but this Brownsville business has
given me the most serious concern on this very pomt. If they were white
troops I do not believe that at this moment any human being would be
maintaining their innocence, and indeed I doubt very seriously whether the
incident could have occurred exactly as it did occur if they had been white
troops But as it is, with a few noted exceptions the colored people have made a
fetish of the innocence of the troops and have been supporting in every way
the political demagogs and visionary enthusiasts who have struck hands m
the matter of their defense

Foraker, for instance, is an able man, and it is simply not supposable that
he seriously questions the guilt of the Negro troops, both of those among
them who are actively concerned in the shooting and the attendant murder,
and of the others who were accessory before or after the fact. Whether he,
as I am personally inclined to believe, championed the cause of the colored
troops merely as an incident m his campaign against me because of our funda-
mental disagreement on the question of the control of corporations, or
whether, as is possible, he did it simply as a political move to secure the
Negro vote — for it is impossible to admit that he could be sincere m any

1 The American Magazine from April through August 1907 carried Bakei’s series of

articles on the Negro question in the South, “Following the Color Line ”

634

belief m the troops’ innocence — the fact remains that the overwhelming
majority of the colored people have stood by him heartily and have been
inclined to lose sight of every real movement for the betterment of their race,
of every real wrong done their race by peonage or lynching, and to fix their
eyes only upon this movement to prevent the punishment of atrociously
.guilty men of their race.

Senator Clay, Clark Howell and two or three others have given me sub-
stantially the view of the Atlanta not which you give; but you work out
features of it as to which I had been entirely ignorant, and I was particularly
glad to see them. Sincerely yours

4289 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, March 31, 1907

Dear Kermit: After a week of hot spring weather we have for Easter Sunday,
I am sorry to say, a rather cold rain. I am up to my ears in work, and have
not been able to ride since you left, tho I have had two or three afternoons
on which I was able to play tennis. Blessed Archie is running all around the
house again He at once wrote a long picture letter to his beloved friends,
the crew of the Sylph , thru Obie, and received from Obie a really nice letter
in return. Quentin is m abounding health and as quaint and funny as ever.
Poor Ted has been laid up for three days

Not merely the railroad presidents but very good people generally have
been wild to have me speak on the railroad situation, so as to see if I could
not lighten the strain on the business situation. I have been much inclined to
yield to their requests, but when I wrote out my speech I began to feel that I
was simply repeating what I had already said, so I lookt up some of my old
speeches, and really I have so completely covered the ground that I gravely
question whether I will try to say anything about it now. I do not like to
seem to talk just for the effect upon the stock market. What I have to say
must be said with a view to permanent policy, and I do not see what particu-
lar good would come just at this moment from my reiterating what I have
said so many times before.

You do not know how proud I was of the way you learned to jump
during your holiday this year. I was mighty glad you had the experience
with Mr. Bacon’s huge Irish hunter, for it is a good thing to have difficult
horses to deal with at times. The pictures of you on Roswell going over the
stone wall and the rail fence have come out very well indeed. I do not mean
that they were as clear-cut as they should be, but they showed you sitting
well down m the saddle in a way that was mighty nice. Your lovmg father
[Handwritten] The grounds are now putting on their dress of spring; the
blossom trees are m bloom, perhaps the most beautiful spot at the moment
is round the north fountain, with the white Magnolia, the pink of the flower-

<535

ing peach, and the yellow of the forsythia. Mother and I took a walk and
found many early flowers along Rock Creek.

4290 * TO FREDERICK WALLINGFORD WHITRIDGE RoOSCVelt MSS

Personal Washington, April 2, 1907

Dear Fred: Many thanks for your letter of the 1st instant. When I make my
speech about railroads it will simply be in the ordinary course of my speech-
making, that is, in some set speech, as my Harrisburg speech last year or my
muck-rakers speech. 1 I have never said, or thought or dreamed of saying,
that the Government ought to ascertain the valuation of railroad properties
as the basis for fixing their rates. Incidentally, and from time to time, I have
no doubt the values of most railroad properties will be obtained. The North-
ern Pacific, for instance, has just formally offered its own value m evidence
before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and I suppose the Interstate
Commerce Commission will now have to examine into it. But I have never
regarded the talk about the physical valuation of the railways as of any real
importance from the standpoint I had in view, but if (for your sins) you
were so unwise as to read my past messages, you would see that I had re-
peatedly advocated having just such a law for the supervision of railroads as
we now have in the national banking law for the supervision of banks

If you at any time have any leisure, come down here and I will show you
the rough draft of what I have been thinking of saying. Faithfully yours

4291 * to albert shaw Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, April 3, 1907

My dear Dr. Shaw: You know how sincerely I believe that your magazine
generally stands for moral betterment all around. I was really shocked to see
m it the last paragraph but one by Dr. Cronin in his article on “The Doctor
in the Public School ” 1 Dr. Cromn may not be consciously immoral, but if
so, it is an unwarranted compliment to speak of his intellect as half-baked.
He is not to be excused for writing m a great periodical m such fashion. The
ordinary individual thinks so little on these questions that it is pardonable for
him to think m confused fashion even on such an elemental proposition as
this, but the man who affects to instruct others in matters of moral and hygi-

1 Whitridge was one of the many financiers who had requested Roosevelt to make
a speech reassuring the financial world.

1 In the paragraph which shocked the President, Doctor John J Cronin concluded
U A very little study of sociology will convince the advocates of the ‘race suicide’ idea
that a few perfect children are far better for the nation and the family than a
dozen unkempt degenerates, who add pathos to the struggle for existence, and who
sink under the inflexible law of the survival of the fittest”, The American Monthly
Review of Reviews, 35 440 (April 1907) Shaw printed Roosevelt’s letter in the May
issue of the Review of Reviews .

636

emc reform must be expected to exhibit at least the rudimentary intelligence
and morality necessary to prevent his saying what the Doctor has here said.
He states clearly that it is an erroneous idea to assume that the average
American family should have a larger number of healthy children than the
present birth rate shows. If he were fit to write on any such subject he
would, before making such a statement, have studied the vital statistics of,
for instance, a State like Massachusetts, which show that there the aver-
age native American family of native American descent has so few children
that the birth rate has fallen below the death rate. This of course means race
suicide, and even Dr. Cronin ought to understand that if, after a while, there
are no children to go to school, the question of their health in school would
not be even academic. His statement that “physical defects go hand in hand
with a large number of children, both m the rich and m the poor,” is simply
not true, as he could tell at a glance by looking up, for instance, the fact that
athletes are most apt to be found m fair-sized families. I am not speaking now
of families of inordinate size (tho even as to such, the high standard of health
and strength among the French Canadians, for instance, is astonishing), but of
those of half a dozen children or thereabouts. Let him look up any serious
statistics, or study any author worthy of reading on the subject at all, includ-
ing Benjamin Franklin, and he will see that in the ordinary family of but one
or two children there is apt to be lower vitality than in a family of four or
five or more. All he has to do if he doubts this is to study the effects of the
marriages with heiresses by the British nobility. He advocates “a little study
of sociology” m others He needs himself a little study of the most primary
and elementary kind; and in the beginning he needs to learn a little arithme-
tic. The question at issue is not between having “a few perfect children” and
“a dozen unkempt degenerates”, it is between having in the average family
a number of children so small that the race diminishes, while, curiously
enough, the physique m such case likewise tends to fall off, and the reason-
able growth which comes when the average family is large enough to make
up for the men and women who do not marry and for those that do and
have no children, or but one or two. He quotes the statistics for Berlm. Let
him study them a little more, let him study other statistics as well; let him
turn to any book dealing with the subject, if written by a man capable of
touching on it at all (as, for instance, let him turn to page 162 of Finot’s
Race Prejudice which I happen at the moment to be reading) and he will
see that in cities like Berlin the upper classes, the wealthier classes, tend to die
out, precisely because of the low birth rate to which he points with such
fatuous approval. The greatest problem of civilization is to be found in the
fact that the well-to-do families tend to die out; there results, in consequence,
a tendency to the elimination instead of the survival of the fittest, and the
moral attitude which helps on this tendency is of course strengthened when
it is apologized for and praised in a magazine like yours. It is not the very
poor, it is not the people with large families, who tend to read articles by

Dr. Cronin in magazines like the Review of Reviews; it is the upper-class
people, who already tend to have too few children, who are reached and
corrupted by such teachings.

I have spoken strongly because I feel strongly. Our people could still
exist under all kinds of iniquities m Government, under free silver, under
official corruption, under the rule of a socialistic proletariat or a wealthy
oligarchy. All these things would be bad for us, but the country could still
exist. But it could not continue to exist if it paid heed to the exprest or
implied teachings of such articles as this of Dr. Cronin’s. These teachings
give a moral justification to every woman who practices abortion; they
furnish excuses for every unnatural prevention of child-bearing, for every
form of gross and shallow selfishness of the kind that is really the deepest
reflection on, the deepest discredit to, American social life. There are coun-
tries which, and people m all countries who, need to be warned against a
rabbit-like indifference to consequences m raising families. The ordinary
American, whether of the old native stock or the self-respecting son or
daughter of immigrants, needs no such warning. He or she needs to have
imprest upon his or her mind the vital lesson that all schemes about having
“doctors in public schools,” about kindergartens, civic associations, women’s
clubs, and training families up in this way or that, are preposterous nonsense
if there are to be no families to tram; and that it is a simple mathematical
proposition that where the average family that has children at all has only
three, the race at once diminishes in numbers, and if the tendency is not
checked, will vanish completely — in other words, there will be race suicide.
Not only the healthiest but the highest relations in life are those of the man
and the woman united on a basis of full and mutually respecting partnership
and wise companionship m loving and permanent wedlock. If thru no fault of
theirs they have no children, they are entitled to our deepest sympathy. If
they refuse to have children sufficient m number to mean that the race goes
forward and not back,* if they refuse to bring them up healthy in body and
mind, then they are criminals, and Dr. Cronin’s article is an incitement to
such criminality. Sincerely yours

[Handwritten]* This must mean on an average four among the families
which are not from natural causes childless or limited to a less number than
four.

4292 * TO ANDREW CARNEGIE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, April 5, 1907

My dear Mr. Carnegie: I much regret my inability to be present with you.
Mr. Root will speak to you at length, and no man in the country is better
fitted than he to address you on the subject you have so much at heart, for
no man has m keener or more practical fashion, or with a nobler disinter-
estedness of purpose, used the national power to further what I believe to be

638

the national purpose of bringing nearer the day when the peace of righteous-
ness, the peace of justice, shall obtain among nations . 1

In this letter of mine I can do little more than wish you and your associ-
ation Godspeed in your efforts. My sympathy with the purposes you have
at heart is both strong and real, and by right of it I shall make to you some
suggestions as to the practical method for accomplishing the ends we all of
us have in view. First and foremost, I beseech you to remember that tho it
is our bounden duty to work for peace, yet it is even more our duty to work
for righteousness and justice. It is “Righteousness that exalteth a nation,” and
tho normally peace is the handmaid of righteousness, yet, if they are ever at
odds, it is righteousness whose cause we must espouse In the second place, I
again earnestly ask that all good and earnest men who believe strongly m
this cause, but who have not themselves to bear the responsibility of uphold-
ing the nation’s honor, shall not by insisting upon the impossible put off the
day when the possible can be accomplished. The peoples of the world have
advanced unequally along the road that leads to justice and fair-dealing, one
with another (exactly as there has been unequal progress in securing such
justice by each within its own borders); and the road stretches far ahead
even of the most advanced Harm and not good would result if the most
advanced nations, those in which most freedom for the individual is com-
bined with most efficiency in securing orderly justice as between individuals,
should by agreement disarm and place themselves at the mercy of other
peoples less advanced, of other peoples still in the stage of military barbarism
or military despotism. Anything in the nature of general disarmament would
do harm and not good if it left the civilized and peace-loving peoples, those
with the highest standards of municipal and international obligation and
duty, unable to shock the other peoples who have no such standards, who
acknowledge no such obligations.

Finally, it behooves all of us to remember, and especially those of us who
either make or listen to speeches, that there are few more mischievous things
than the custom of uttering or applauding sentiments which represent mere
oratory, and which are not, and cannot be, and have not been, translated
from words into deeds An impassioned oration about peace which includes
an impassioned demand for something which the man who makes the de-
mand either knows or ought to know cannot, as a matter of fact, be done,
represents not gain, but loss, for the cause of peace, for even the noblest
cause is marred by advocacy which is either insincere or foolish.

These warnings that I have uttered do not mean that I believe we can do
nothing to advance the cause of international peace. On the contrary, I
believe that we can do much to advance it, provided only we act with sanity,
with self-restraint, with power; which must be the prime qualities m the
achievement of any reform. The nineteenth century saw, on the whole, a

x On April 15, Root addressed the National Arbitration and Peace Conference, of

which Carnegie was president

639

real and great advance m the standard of international conduct, both as
among civilized nations and by strong nations towards weaker and more
backward peoples. The twentieth century will, I believe, witness a much
greater advance in the same direction. The United States has a right to speak
on behalf of such a cause, and to ask that its course during the half dozen
opening years of the century be accepted as a guaranty of the truth of its
professions. During these six years we can conscientiously say that without
sacrificing our own rights we have yet scrupulously respected the rights of
all other peoples. With the great military nations of the world, alike m Europe
and in that newest Asia which is also the oldest, we have preserved a mutually
self-respecting and kindly friendship In the Philippine Islands we are train-
ing a people in the difficult art of self-government with more success than
those best acquainted with the facts had dared to hope. We are doing this
because we have acted in a spirit of genuine disinterestedness, of genuine and
single-minded purpose to benefit the islanders — and I may add, m a spirit
wholly untainted by that silly sentimentality which is often more dangerous
to both the subject and the object than downright iniquity. In Panama we
are successfully performing what is to be the greatest engineering feat of the
ages, and while we are assuming the whole burden of the work, we have
explicitly pledged ourselves that the use is to be free for all mankind. In the
islands of the Caribbean we have interfered not as conquerors, but solely to
avert the need of conquest. The United States army is at this moment m
Cuba, not as an act of war, but to restore Cuba to the position of a self-
governing republic. With Santo Domingo we have just negotiated a treaty
especially designed to prevent the need of any interference either by us or by
any foreign nation with the internal affairs of the island, while at the same
time securing the honest creditors their debts and to the government of the
island an assured income, and giving to the islanders themselves the chance, if
only they will take advantage of it, to achieve the internal peace they so
sorely need. Mr. Root’s trip thru South America marked the knitting to-
gether in the bonds of self-respecting friendship of all the republics of this
continent; it marked a step toward the creation among them of a commumty
of public feeling which will tell for justice and peace thruout the western
hemisphere. By the joint good offices of Mexico and ourselves we averted
one war m Central America, and did what we could to avert another, altho
we failed. We have more than once, while avoiding officious international
meddling, shown our readiness to help other nations secure peace among
themselves. A difficulty which we had with our friendly neighbor to the
south of us, we solved by referring it to arbitration at The Hague. A diffi-
culty which we had with our friendly neighbor to the north of us, we
solved by the agreement of a joint commission composed of representatives
of the two peoples m interest. We try to avoid meddling in affairs that are
not our concern, and yet to have our views heard where they will avail on

640

behalf of fair-dealing and against cruelty and oppression. We have concluded
certain arbitration treaties. I only regret that we have not concluded a larger
number.

Our representatives will go to the second peace conference at The Hague
instructed to help m every practicable way to bring some steps nearer com-
pletion the great work which the first conference began. It is idle to expect
that a task so tremendous can be settled by any one or two conferences, and
those who demand the impossible from such a conference not only prepare
acute disappointment for themselves, but by arousing exaggerated and base-
less hopes which are certain to be disappointed, play the game of the very
men who wish the conference to accomplish nothing. It is not possible that
the conference should go more than a certain distance further in the right
direction. Yet I believe that it can make real progress on the road towards
international justice, peace and fair-dealing. One of the questions, altho not
to my mind one of the most important, which will be brought before the
conference, will be that of the limitation of armaments. The United States,
owing to its peculiar position, has a regular army so small as to be infinitesi-
mal when compared to that of any other first-class power. But the circum-
stances which enable this to be so are peculiar to our case, and do not warrant
us in assuming the offensive attitude of schoolmaster towards other nations.
We are no longer enlarging our navy. We are simply keeping up its strength,
very moderate indeed when compared with our wealth, population and
coast line, for the addition of one battleship a year barely enables us to make
good the units which become obsolete. The most practicable step m dimin-
ishing the burden of expense caused by the increasing size of naval armaments
would, I believe, be an agreement limiting the size of all ships hereafter to
be built, but hitherto it has not proved possible to get other nations to agree
with us on this point.

More important than reducing the expense of the implements of war is
the question of reducing the possible causes of war, which can most effectu-
ally be done by substituting other methods than war for the settlement of
disputes. Of those other methods the most important which is now attainable
is arbitration. I do not believe that m the world as it actually is it is possible
for any nation to agree to arbitrate all difficulties which may arise between
itself and other nations, but I do believe that there can be at this time a very
large increase in the classes of cases which it is agreed shall be arbitrated, and
that provision can be made for greater facility and certainty of arbitration.
I hope to see adopted a general arbitration treaty among the nations, and I
hope to see The Hague Court greatly increased m power and permanency,
and the judges m particular made permanent and given adequate salaries, so
as to make it increasingly probable that in each case that may come before
them they will decide between the nations, great or small, exactly as a judge
within our own limits decides between the individuals, great or small, who

641

come before him. Doubtless many other matters will be taken up at The
Hague, but it seems to me that this of a general arbitration treaty is perhaps
the most important.

Again wishing you all good fortune in your work, Sincerely yours

4293 ' TO THOMAS MACDONALD PATTERSON RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Washmgton, April 8, 1907

My dear Senator: That is a very nice article of yours and I thank you sin-
cerely for it. It seems to me that the letters of mine to Mr. Harriman in the
fall of 1904, all of which were at once made public upon the publication of
the Webster letter, leave the case pretty clear. 1 On October 14th I wrote
Harriman, explicitly stating that there was no need of his coming down here
because what I had to say would keep until after election. Of course this is
incompatible with the supposition that what I wanted him to do was to sub-
scribe funds for the election. As you point out, there was no lack of money
whatever during the last two weeks of the campaign. As a matter of fact,
Harriman, who lies about private conversations just as he swindles in railway
transactions, came to see me simply to ask me to secure money and other
assistance for the State ticket m New York. He stated that he had subscribed
a hundred thousand dollars to it himself, but that he did not feel that all of
this should be permanently his own loss. He urged us to have Cortelyou and
‘ Bliss turn over all the money possible to Odell, and urged Depew’s appoint-
ment because certain financiers whom he named would subscribe heavily if
Depew were to be taken care of, and, as he explained, Odell had decided
that Depew could not be re-elected Senator. I told him I would of course
be very glad to do all I could for the State campaign, tho I did not think I
could appoint either Depew or Hyde, and explained that I was being ap-
proached, as he was approaching me, from very many different States on
behalf of the several State campaigns, but that I would communicate with
Cortelyou and Bliss and request them to give all the aid they could to the
New York State campaign. My memory is that I communicated only with
Cortelyou; as I do not think I communicated with Bliss directly at all except
as to one contribution, which I insisted should be returned — the history of
which I shall give you in full on some occasion when I see you.

In what I said and in what Mr. Cortelyou said we were both of us

1 On April 2 the New York World published a letter purchased from a discharged
Harriman stenographer in which Harriman had written an associate, Sidney
Webster, that any political prominence he may have obtained “is entirely due to
President Roosevelt, and because of my taking an active part m the autumn of 1904,
at his urgent request, and his taking advantage of conditions thus created to further
his own interests.” Roosevelt responded by making public the letter written to
Sherman on October 8, 1906 (No. 4094)

642

scrupulously careful not to say that no money contributions had been made
to the campaign fund by corporations. At that time it was legal for corpora-
tions to contribute. They had contributed in 1892, in 1896 and m 1900. They
had contributed chiefly to the Democratic campaign fund in 1892, chiefly
to the Republican campaign fund in 1896 and 1900. They contributed to both
funds in 1904. The subsequent revelations convinced me that corporations
should not be allowed to contribute, and this was why I advocated the law
which you were instrumental in passing thru Congress forbidding it being
done. In my answer to Mr. Parker you will remember that I explicitly stated
that such contributions had been made to both campaign funds, and Mr.
Cortelyou specified that the amount contributed to the campaign fund (from
individuals and corporations together) was about half of that contributed in
1896. Mr. Parker’s allegations did not refer merely to contributions; contri-
butions were of course freely made to the extent of hundreds of thousands
of dollars to his own campaign fund. His assertion was that these contri-
butions to the Republican campaign fund were extorted by threat or by
promise of some consideration on our part. This was a lie; and it seems to
me that even the most rudimentary intelligence would prove to any man
who has followed the legislative and the executive action of the past two and
a half years in reference to the Standard Oil, the Harriinan people, the sugar
trust, the tobacco trust, and so forth, and so forth, that no human being and
no corporation had gained immunity of any kind in the matter of wrong-
doing, so far as this administration is concerned. I am quite content to be
judged by the adage “By their fruits shall ye know them.”

The real trouble with Harriman and his associates is that they have
found themselves absolutely powerless to control any action by the national
government. There is no form of mendacity or bribery or corruption that
they will not resort to in the effort to take vengeance. The Harriman-
Standard Oil combination and the other owners of predatory wealth hate
me far more than they do those who make a profession of denouncing them,
because they have learned that while I do not attack them in words as reckless
as those often used against them, I do try to make my words bear fruit in
deeds. They have never before been obliged really to reckon with the
federal government. They have never before seen practical legislation such as
the rate bill, the beef inspection bill and the like become laws. They have
never before had to face the probability of adverse action by the courts and
the possibility of being put in stripes. Such being the case, and inasmuch as
they have no moral scruple of any kind whatsoever, it is not to be wondered
at that they should be willing to go to any length in the effort to reverse the
movement against them. By reading the New York Sun and similar papers
we can get a clear idea of the extent to which they will go in that portion
of the press which they control.

With great regard, Sincerely yours

643

4294 * TO ARTHUR HAMILTON LEE Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, April 8, 1907

My dear Lee: Many thanks for your long letter. Archie is now all right. He
was dangerously ill.

You handled the Swettenham matter just as was necessary. To my im-
mense amusement Swettenham himself has now turned into a most agreeable
professional lover of America! The Secretary of the Navy and various
Senators made a stop at Jamaica on a trip on the Dolphin recently, and they
could not speak too highly of Swettenham’s cordiality f I shall take the
liberty of telling Admiral Davis what you so kindly say of him. I am sure,
my dear fellow, I need not say to you, what you, with your admirable sense
of humor and broad-mindedness, already realize, that the Swettenham inci-
dent was fundamentally really a comic incident, and that, I regret to own,
there are any number of Swettenhams in the American service who want but
the chance to develop their peculiar talents. When our General James H.
Wilson, a good old boy in some ways, was holding a high command in
Cuba under President McKinley, he made an address in which, apropos of
nothing whatever, he stated that he regarded with the utmost suspicion
England’s professions of friendship for the United States as long as she
would not give up Canada!

Bryce has started out well. Whether we can get a general treaty settling
the questions between Canada and the United States, I do not know. I
should tremble about laying such a treaty before the Senate, not because I
think the President is better than the average Senator, but because the
President looks at things from the national standpoint and the Senator nat-
urally looks at things from his own special standpoint and therefore may at
any time vote to reject a treaty which is greatly for the national good as a
whole because there is some special interest in his locality which is hurt.
Moreover, this same particularism is shown by Canada. You know what you
found about the Newfoundland fisheries question, for instance. Still, while
I am President I think I can guarantee that there will be no trouble of a
serious nature between our two countries.

I am much interested in what you tell me about Ware, 1 the editor of the
Morning Post, and am greatly amused to find the impression the Burgess
incident made. 2 The Roosevelt Chair at Berlin was founded by James Speyer,
who is by birth a German. Nicholas Murray Butler, who is an awfully good
fellow, and heartily friendly to England, but also very friendly to Germany
and a great admirer of the Kaiser, nominated Mr. Burgess. I had no more
to do with the choice of Mr. Burgess than, for instance, with the choice of

1 Fabian Ware, editor of the Morning Post, 1905-191 1

2 Professor John William Burgess, prominent political scientist, dean of the faculty at

Columbia University, was the first Roosevelt Professor of American History and

Institutions at Friedrich Wilhelms University m Berlin

644

Mr. Wendell or Mr. Coolidge, 3 who have delivered on successive years simi-
lar lectures m Paris, but who have shown much more tact and judgment.
Burgess is an interesting fellow but very crotchety, and is a political oppo-
nent of mine, tho our personal relations have been excellent. He is a man who
has done a great deal of historical work, some of it bright and suggestive,
and much of it hopelessly wrongheaded Among other things he has always
been violently against me on the Monroe Doctrine, and he selected — of all
times in the world — his first lecture as an opportunity to state his radical
dissent. 4 It was exceedingly foolish, and brought down upon his head the
almost unanimous and vigorous disapproval of the American press, and while
of course he had no connection with the Government, the State Department
immediately stated that he had no such official connection and that his
sentiments were entirely disapproved by this Government.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. Lee. Do you ever see Oliver, the man
who wrote the life of Hamilton? I had hoped that he would be over here this
spring and that I would see him. Sincerely yours

4295 • to james Wilson Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, April 10, 1907

My dear Mr . Secretary : In accordance with your suggestion I have submitted
the matter concerning the proper labeling of whisky under the pure food
law to the Department of Justice. I enclose the Attorney General’s opinion.
I agree with this opinion and direct that action be taken m accordance with
it. 1

Straight whisky will be labeled as such.

A mixture of two or more straight whiskies will be labeled Blended
Whisky or Whiskies.

A mixture of straight whisky and ethyl alcohol, provided that there is
a sufficient amount of straight whisky to make it genuinely a “mixture,” will
be labeled as compound of, or compounded with, pure gram distillate.
Imitation whisky will be labeled as such. Sincerely yours

4296 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 10, 1907

Dear Cabot: As far as I know there is not the slightest mtention on Evans’
part to retire. If he does, I have notified the General Board that I intend to

3 Professors Barrett Wendell and Archibald Cary Coolidge of Harvard University.
* In this lecture, Burgess maintained that two doctrines, the Monroe Doctrine and the
protective tariff principle, which most Americans considered “holy,” were rapidly
becommg “obsolete ”

1 As the newspapers emphasized, this opinion, the first important decision to be made
under the labeling provision of the pure food law, was a complete victory for the
straight whisky interests.

<545

put Harry in his place. But you absolutely astound me by saying that Dewey
said that all the Naval Board favored Harry succeeding Evans. 1 Did Dewey
tell you this 3 As a matter of fact, Dewey has urged me in the strongest terms
to retire Harry and put Goodrich in his place, saying that Goodrich was a
much better man than Evans and a very much better man than Harry and
the only man who ought to have that squadron. I was told that this was the
view of the Naval Board, too, and I summoned the Naval Board together
and went over it with them. They were for the most part very reluctant to
express their opinions, Dewey being the one man who was entirely bold,
and he being outspoken almost to the point of violence, as I have before
described. They made definite charges about Evans’ handling of the fleet, and
by innuendo or indirection against Harry’s handling of his squadron. I had
Metcalf look into the matter personally, and he reports to me that Evans has
done his work well and that those under him have done their work well, and
that the Board, or the Dewey side of the Board (which, curiously enough,
includes Sims) was entirely in error in the view that they took. I came to the
conclusion that there had been a regular intrigue started against Evans and
Harry, Dewey being the instrument of it, but Goodrich probably inspiring it.
I may add that it was exposed to me by Will Cowles, who has been an ardent
champion of both Evans and Harry. This is for your own information
merely. Ever yours

[Handwritten] We have nothing new, we suppose Eza 2 remains as she
was; we can’t bear to think of Nannie.

4297 • TO NICHOLAS LONGWORTH Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, April 1 1, 1907

Dear Nick: Now that your interview is out I have gone carefully over it and
it seems excellent from every standpoint. 1 I wish the professional Taft
leaders — so to speak — had your sanity and judgment. From this distance
Foraker’s speech does not strike us as very telling, but of course I know
nothing of its effect in Ohio. 2

With love to Alice. Always yours

1 Admiral Davis was retired in August 1907 Admiral Evans remamed in command
of the Atlantic fleet until August 1908 when illness forced his retirement.

2 Mrs. John D H. Luce, Lodge’s sister-in-law, who was dying.

1 Longworth had endorsed Taft for President.

2 At Canton, on April 10, Foraker defended his opposition to Roosevelt’s policies in
an address which marked the beginning of his speaking campaign to keep Ohio from

supporting Taft The senator then and later provoked more interest in, than op-
position to, his adversary.

646

4298 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, April 1 1, 1907

Dear Kerrnit: Robinson’s letter and poem have come and I send them back.
I like the poem, even tho I do not understand every word of it. Leffingwell,
Lmgard and Clavering are not real characters at all They are simply like the
various individuals mentioned in The Children of the Night .

The pictures of Ted and myself jumping did not come out well, but I send
you two or three. I think I shall get some professional photographers to go
out with us and take some pictures. I wish you were here to be taken also.

It has been quite cold weather — almost frosty — but today is clear and
Mother and I are going for a ride. Spring has come, even if it is cold, and
the hyacinths have been put along the walls of both the east and west
terraces (or wings, or whatever you call them) and I always stop and smell
the flowers as I walk to and from my office.

The excitement over the conspiracy, and the dinner at which Senator Pen-
rose got drunk and exposed it, Mr Loeb being present, and all the rest, seems
to be dying out. 1 In New York — or at least in the New York clubs and the
big business houses generally — feeling was against me, and m the rest of the
country it was for me. On the whole I think the fight has been a distinct ad-
vantage to me. Foraker is leading the fight against Taft, and incidentally
against me, m Ohio, but I believe that his teeth are pretty well drawn
nationally, altho locally he may cause trouble. I thought Nick’s interview on
behalf of Taft admirable from every standpoint

I continue rather irritatingly at work, because I want to prepare the
speeches I have to deliver in the near future and it is not very easy to do so.

Do tell the Rector when you see him how deeply I appreciate what he
has done about Archie. I shall see Mr. Sidwell and talk over the matter with
him. Archie will speedily be able to begin a couple of months’ work. Your
loving father

4299 • TO FREDERICK WALLINGFORD WHITRIDGE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, April 12, 1907

My dear Whitndge. Curiously enough I have heard from one or two rail-
road men quite strongly in favor of the valuation of railroads by the National
Government. Of course the only objection to this (while I do not myself

1 Penrose, representative of the Rockefeller interests, and Harriman were reported
to have banded together to defeat Rooseveltism in 1908. It was alleged that $5,000,000
had been set aside by the “conspirators” for this purpose. Philander C. Knox, en-
dorsed by the Pennsylvania Republicans in June, was supposed to be the preferred
candidate of the group. There is really no evidence to support the claim of a formal
conspiracy, though it is quite obvious Roosevelt’s policies held little appeal for
Penrose, Rockefeller, and Harriman.

647

think it important save from the standpoint of the railroads themselves, and
while I have never thought of demanding it) is lest it should be misconstrued.
Ten States have already by law provided for the valuation of the railroad
properties within their limits. In my judgment twenty or thirty more will
follow suit; and if so, in a couple of years we shall see the railroads clamoring
for a valuation by the National Government, so as to put a stop to the
chaotic conclusions drawn from the thirty or forty conflicting valuations of
the State Governments. Faithfully yours

4300 • TO WILLIAM COOLIDGE LANE Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Washington, April 15, 1907

Dear Lane : 1 One of the difficulties of our position is the demand of educated
Cubans that we stay in Cuba. I have no question that the great majority of
the best, most intelligent, and most thrifty and industrious Cubans wish us
to stay. Nevertheless, it is not a thing we can do. The Cubafis are entitled to
at least one more trial for their independent republic. Exactly what the con-
ditions of the trial or trials shall be, I cannot yet say. Faithfully yours

4301 • TO CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS Roosevelt MSS

' Washington, April 16, 1907

Dear Mr. Vice-President: Thank you for your letter. That is first rate. I
feared that to publish my letter would merely cause additional talk. 1 1 think
that if necessary you should insist upon the G. A. R. being given their full
share in the Lawton memorial exercises. It seems to me that both the Lawton
and the Grand Army people should be told that unless they compose their
differences I shall not come to Indianapolis at all, but will speak in some other
city on that day. It is not only undignified but absurd to lower the im-
portance of such a day by a squabble which cannot possibly reflect credit
upon any of those engaged in it. In especial I feel that the Spanish war
veterans ought not to insist upon anything that will seem to cast a slight upon
the veterans of the Civil War. I am one of the Spanish war men myself, and
I would be the first to acknowledge as a matter of course that both because
of their age and because of the infinitely greater nature of the war, our claims
must not be put forward against the claims of the Civil War veterans.

With warm regards to Mrs. Fairbanks, believe me, Sincerely yours
[Handwritten] After your lunch, I want to go quietly to the cemetery

1 Will iam Coolidge Lane, librarian of Harvard University, 1898-1928

"A squabble had arisen between the old and new veterans over plans to dedicate in
Indianapolis a monument to Henry Ware Lawton, a Spamsh-Amencan War
general, on Memorial Day. In a previous letter to Fairbanks, Roosevelt insisted he
would speak only to the combined groups and that the Grand Army should have
“the right of the line” in the parade 3

648

to place a wreath on Presdt. Harrison’s monument Don’t make this public.
The Spanish war men should remember that any celebration on Memorial
Day must be primarily a Grand Army celebration.

4302 * TO PHILIP BATHELL STEWART Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, April 16, 1907

Dear Phil: I have your telegram of the 1 5th instant. Hagerman is a good
fellow, but has made an impossible Governor. He finally committed an antic
in connection with ratifying a grossly improper acquisition of public land
which, if I did not know him, would make me feel absolutely certain that he
was corrupt, and which, if I let it go unpunished, would mean that I could
not hold any other Government official in New Mexico to accountability
for anything he did hereafter . 1 1 shall put m his place Captain George Curry,

hagerman, honest but naive, had permitted himself to become involved m the
land deals of the Pennsylvania Development Company. In 1903 that corporation,
controlled by William H Andrews, Matt Quay, and other Pennsylvania politicians
and businessmen, had conceived a scheme to defraud the Territory of New Mexico
of valuable timber. It arranged for its employees to take options on valuable sections
of timber land, the land to be later reconveyed to the company. By this means the
company circumvented the territorial law forbidding the sale of more than 160
acres to any individual or corporation W S. Hopewell, the company’s attorney,
deposited a bond of $10,000 to secure these options. The deeds for the lands were
recorded in the Territorial Land Office but not delivered to the applicants. Assistant
Attorney General Cooley when he later investigated the case pointed out that, be-
cause there was no law requiring the recording of deeds, “such entry was made,
therefore, merely m order that the Commissioner might have an accurate inventory
of all public land transactions.” The Pennsylvania Development Company then
proceeded to cut timber on these lands for which it had obtained options but not
titles.

In August of 1906, Hopewell, as attorney for the company, asked Hagerman to
give him the company’s deeds. A few months earlier the governor had been advised
by Secretary Garfield and John F. Lacey, chairman of the House Committee on
Public Lands, not to deliver certain deeds granted another company in a similar
tiansaction on the grounds that such a sale violated the law prohibiting the sale of
more than 160-acre tracts. Despite this advice, Hagerman delivered the deeds to
Hopewell and accepted the attorney’s personal check for the $10,000 bond and its
accumulated interest Hagerman was convinced that only in this way would the
Territory, be certain of obtaining payment for the timber already cut on these lands
“A judgment m a suit by the Territory against the Company,” he later wrote to
Roosevelt, “to recover the value of the timber would have been, to say the least, of
doubtful efficacy The deeds, whether in the Territorial Land Office or in the
possession of the Company, would have been equally available as a defence to any
such suit. Their delivery by me in no way strengthened the Company, if the
transaction was illegal.” Cooley in a subsequent report stressed that the company did
not have title to the land until the deeds were delivered, and once it had acquired
title the Territory’s excellent case against the company was materially weakened.

Having persuaded Hagerman to appiove their land steals, Andrews and his
associates decided to use this very transaction as a means to get the governor out of
New Mexico. The Republican organization in the Territory - which included
Andrews, at this time territorial delegate to Congress, and such government
officials as W H H Llewellyn and his son Morgan, J Wallace Raynolds, George
W Pritchard, and Albert B Fall - had been antagonized by Hagerman’s attempts

649

who has been for six years in the Philippines, and is one of the very best men
I know anywhere. 2 A very competent New Mexican man who has been
backing Hagerman wrote me- “My impression is that Mr. Hagerman has
incurred the enmity of certain people by assuming to do his duty as he saw
it. My further impression is that Mr. Hagerman is not only absolutely
ignorant of things and conditions in New Mexico, but has no knowledge
whatever of the people, and hence he has made many mistakes in his
administration.” Both impressions are substantially correct. Sincerely yours

4303 • TO FREDERICK WALLINGFORD WHITRIDGE Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 16, 1907

Dear Whitndge: Many thanks for your letter. In the first place let me repeat
that neither I nor the Interstate Commerce Commission have ever said any-
thing which even a fool w T ould regard as saymg that we wisht to value the
railroads for the purpose of fixing rates. Unquestionably under the decision
of the Supreme Court the value of a railroad must be a factor in fixing rates.
It may be an utterly unimportant factor, and generally will. I think we are
getting towards the point where there must be a national incorporation law
for railroads. I do not as yet feel that the time has come to speak of the valua-
tion of railroads by the National Government; but I am by no means as sure
as I was that the time will not shortly come and that it may not come in
the interest of the railroads themselves. If such is the case, it is very desirable
that it shall not come in the guise of a piece of favoritism to the railroads.

I am particularly interested in the judicial decisions which you give me,
which may be of real help if I have to have a fight. Faithfully yours

to reform territorial administration. In March 1907 the speaker of the territorial
lower house, a spokesman for the organization, introduced a resolution charging the
governor with misconduct for his connection with the sale of lands to the Pennsyl-
vania Development Company. The legislature appointed an investigating committee
whose report, printed in March, condemned Hagerman for attempting to defraud
the Territory.

Roosevelt then intervened He instructed Cooley to investigate the case and
called Hagerman to Washmgton. Hagerman, insisting that he had only committed
“an error of judgment,” agreed to resign. After he had submitted his resignation on
April 22, Hagerman’s friends in New Mexico urged Roosevelt to reject the resigna-
tion. Annoyed, the President sent Hagerman a long letter giving the Administration’s
opinion on the matter, see No. 4313. Hagerman’s reply and other documents present-
ing his case are given in his Statement m Regard to Certain Matters Concerning the
Governorship and Political Affairs in New Mexico in 1906-1207 (privately printed,
1908).

The investigation started by Hagerman’s deal with the Pennsylvania land com-
pany led to the revelation of extensive land frauds in New Mexico and ultimately to
the removal of important territorial officials, see No. 4324

* Curry, a former Rough Rider, had been governor of three Philippine provmces
Governor of New Mexico Territory, 1 907-1 91 1, he later represented the state m
Congress, 1912-1913.

650

4304 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE

Printed 1

Washington, April 16, 1907

Dear Cabot : I saw some friends who had been in New York recently; they
say that New York’s view of me — the view of the clubs, of high finance,
and of the “educated intelligence” — is one of hatred, terror, but above all
horror. They now think that I have become partially insane through exces-
sive drinking!

To the Peace People I would only write what I really believed — hence
Carnegie’s indignation. Ever yours

4305 * TO CHARLES GRENFILL WASHBURN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, April 17, 1907

Dear Charley: 1 That is such a nice letter of yours that I must write to say
so. I am mighty glad at the way you feel about Taft. Of course I do not
wish to dictate the nomination. Taft or Root, or any man as good as either,
will do for me — but at present it looks to me as if Taft was the man we
ought to unite on. Of course this is private. As for myself you are entirely
right. I have never for a moment altered my views as to the wisdom of my
declaration after the election of 1904. It is time for someone else to stand his
trick at the wheel. I am particularly pleased at having you, with your judg-
ment and surroundings, feel as you do about my policies. Always yours

4306 * TO JAMES FRANKLIN BELL Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, April 20, 1907

My dear General Bell: I have had more than one unpleasant experience with
field officers of cavalry regiments (in one case a colonel and in other cases,
majors) who I found by personal observation were wholly incapable of
undergoing any sustained physical exertion and were not able to even ride
at any speed a moderately good horse. 1 Of course such a condition of affairs
is a disgrace to the army and might at any time be a serious danger. I think
that hereafter in the examination for promotion of field officers, they should
be required not only to pass the so-called physical tests, which really amount
to nothing, but to perform various feats of horsemanship — riding, and, I
should suppose, jumping, horses — and go out with troops on practice marches
for a number of days. Moreover, I think we ought to take steps to get rid
of the worthless cavalry field officers as well as infantry field officers that are
1 Lodge, II, 267.

1 Washburn had been a member of Congress for four months.

1 Roosevelt had long been preoccupied with the physical stamina of both officers and
men in the army, see No. 2511.

651

now in the service. Could you not call upon the department commanders to
report those field officers on duty with troops who from any cause have not
been able to take part in the practical training laid down for the army in
General Orders No. 44, 1906, and who have not made all practice marches
therein prescribed, and to report what they understand to be the reasons why
these officers have not done scP Cannot the Inspector General of the Army
report the officers who have been reported by him or his subordinates as not
being fit for active field service for any cause, together with a statement of
any action taken on these cases^ Later I should think that we could order all
these men before a retiring board and put them thru not a mere physical
test, but a test of actual endurance in the field and of their horsemanship.
Could not the present examination boards be constituted into permanent re-
tirement boards? Or would it be better to have you, on recommendation of
the General Staff, carefully select the members of retiring boards^ Would
it not be well that on examining and retiring boards, in addition to the
ordinary physical examination by the surgeon, they should consider certain
field tests of riding and marching, as well as the medical record of the officer
at his last station and the certificate of his last commanding officer as to his
mental and physical fitness in the field? Are there any other ways that can
be devised for getting the dead wood among the field officers before retiring
boards? Very truly yours

4307 • TO NICHOLAS LONGWORTH Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, April 20, 1907

Dear Nick : Your letter of the 18th instant received. Of course you can show
this letter to Charlie Taft. Your arguments seem to me to be strong. At any
rate let nothing be done until Bill comes back and has a chance to go over
everything. I quite agree with you that Bill’s support must come from
popular sentiment. I shall ask him to see you and go all over the situation with
his supporters of every shade of opinion before he takes any overt action
whatever. 1

Love to Alice. Ever yours

1 In Ohio the year 1907 was a time of trouble Boss Cox of Cincinnati, a sensitive
weather vane, had decided that the strongest winds were blowmg behind Taft He
therefore persuaded Foraker to suggest a compromise to the Tart camp by which
Ohio Republicans would support Taft for President and Foraker for senator Such
an arrangement would have frustrated Burton’s senatorial ambitions. It also offended
the political sensibilities of Taft and his leading supporters. After his return from
the Caribbean, the Secretary of War therefore decided, as his brother, Charles P.
Taft, Nicholas Longworth, and Burton had hoped he would, to reject Foraker’s
offer. With this decision the issue was defined and the lines were drawn Foraker
and Dick stood on one side, Taft, his managers, and Boss Cox on the other

65 2

43<>8 • TO HONORE JAXON

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, April 22, 1907

Dear Str : 1 1 have received your letter of the 19th instant, m which you en-
close the draft of the formal letter which is to follow. I have been notified
that several delegations, bearing similar requests, are on the way hither. In
the letter you, on behalf of the Cook County Moyer-Haywood conference,
protest against certain language I used in a recent letter which you assert
to be designed to influence the course of justice in the case of the trial for
murder of Messrs. Moyer and Haywood. I entirely agree with you that it is
improper to endeavor to influence the course of justice, whether by threats
or in any similar manner For this reason I have regretted most deeply the
action of such organizations as your own in undertaking to accomplish this
very result m the very case of which you speak. For instance, your letter is
headed “Cook County Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Conference,” with the
headlines — “ Death — cannot — will not — and shall not claim our broth-
ers!” This shows that you and your associates are not demanding a fair trial,
or working for a fair trial, but are announcing in advance that the verdict
shall only be one way, and that you will not tolerate any other verdict. Such
action is flagrant in its impropriety, and I join heartily in condemning it
But it is a simple absurdity to suppose that because any man is on trial
for a given offense he is therefore to be freed from all criticism upon his
general conduct and manner of life. In my letter to which you object, I
referred to a certain prominent financier, Mr. Harriman, on the one hand,
and to Messrs. Moyer, Haywood and Debs on the other, as being equally
undesirable citizens. It is as foolish to assert that this was designed to influence
the trial of Moyer and Haywood as to assert that it was designed to influence
the suits that have been brought against Mr. Harriman. I neither exprest nor
indicated any opinion as to whether Messrs. Moyer and Haywood were
guilty of the murder of Governor Steunenberg. If they are guilty they cer-
tainly ought to be punished. If they are not guilty they certainly ought not
to be punished. But no possible outcome either of the trial or the suits can
affect my judgment as to the undesirability of the type of citizenship of those
whom I mentioned. Messrs. Moyer, Haywood and Debs, stand as representa-
tives of those men who have done as much to discredit the labor movement
as the worst speculative financiers or most unscrupulous employers of labor
and debauchers of legislatures have done to discredit honest capitalists and

1 Honor e Jaxon, a French Canadian, was chairman of the Cook County Moyer-
Haywood-Pettibone Conference. This was one of several “conferences” formed to
work for the acquittal of the labor leaders under indictment for complicity in the
Steunenberg murder. The members of these groups, including many representatives of
the American Federation of Labor as well as of the Western Federation of Miners,
had denounced Roosevelt for his classification of Moyer, Haywood, and Debs as
“undesirable citizens.” These words, they asserted, improperly prejudiced the jury
in the Haywood trial.

65 3

fair-dealing businessmen. They stand as the representatives of those men who
by their public utterances and manifestoes, by the utterances of the papers
they control or inspire, and by the words and deeds of those associated with
or subordinated to them, habitually appear as guilty of incitement to or
apology for bloodshed and violence. If this does not constitute undesirable
citizenship, then there can never be any undesirable citizens. The men whom
I denounce represent the men who have abandoned that legitimate movement
for the uplifting of labor, with which I have the most hearty sympathy,
they have adopted practices which cut them off from those who lead this
legitimate movement. In every way I shall support the law-abiding and up-
right representatives of labor; and in no way can I better support them than
by drawing the sharpest possible lin6 between them on the one hand, and, on
the other hand, those preachers of violence who are themselves the worst
foes of the honest laboring man.

Let me repeat my deep regret that any body of men should so far forget
their duty to the country as to endeavor by the formation of societies and in
other ways to influence the course of justice in this matter. I have received
many such letters as yours. Accompanying them were newspaper clippings
announcing demonstrations, parades and mass-meetings designed to show that
the representatives of labor, without regard to the facts, demand the ac-
quittal of Messrs. Haywood and Moyer. Such meetings can of course be
designed only to coerce court or jury m rendering a verdict, and they there-
fore deserve all the condemnation which you in your letters say should be
awarded to those who endeavor improperly to influence the course of
justice.

You would of course be entirely within your rights if you merely an-
nounced that you thought Messrs. Moyer and Haywood were “desirable
citizens” — tho in such case I should take frank issue with you and should
say that, wholly without regard to whether or not they are guilty of the
crime for which they are now being tried, they represent as thoroly undesir-
able a type of citizenship as can be found m this country, a type which, in
the letter to which you so unreasonably take exception, I showed not to be
confined to any one class but to exist among some representatives of great
capitalists as well as among some representatives of wageworkers. In that
letter I condemned both types. Certain representatives of the great capitalists
in turn condemned me for including Mr. Harriman in my condemnation of
Messrs. Moyer and Haywood. Certain of the representatives of labor in
their turn condemned me because I included Messrs Moyer and Haywood
as undesirable citizens together with Mr. Harriman. I am as profoundly in-
different to the condemnation in one case as m the other. I challenge as a
right the support of all good Americans, whether wageworkers or capitalists,
whatever their occupation or creed, or in whatever portion of the country
they live, when I condemn both the types of bad citizenship which I have
held up to reprobation. It seems to me a mark of utter insincerity to fail thus

654

to condemn both, and to apologize for either robs the man thus apologizing
of all right to condemn any wrongdoing in any man, rich or poor, in public
or in private life.

You say you ask for a “square deal” for Messrs. Moyer and Haywood.
So do I. When I say “square deal” I mean a square deal to everyone; it is
equally a violation of the policy of the square deal for a capitalist to protest
against denunciation of a capitalist who is guilty of wrongdoing and for a
labor leader to protest against the denunciation of a labor leader who has
been guilty of wrongdoing. I stand for equal justice to both, and so far as m
my power lies I shall uphold justice whether the man accused of guilt has
behind him the wealthiest corporations, the greatest aggregations of riches
in the country, or whether he has behind him the most influential labor
organizations in the country. Very truly yours

4309 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, April 23, 1907

Dearest Kermit: I am glad you are on the second eight. At the same time I
doubt whether, no matter how much endurance you have, you will develop
quite the physical strength necessary to try for the freshman eight when you
go to Harvard, and so I am glad that this spring you will practice running so
far as you are able, and will try m the mile run next fall. I think you would
do better in the two-mile, but if you really practice a little for the mile and
make an effort to run it m Groton, it will help you immensely for the two-
mile in Harvard. A man who is at all good at the two-mile has to meet very
many fewer competitors than those who try for short distances, and so there
would be a fair chance of your doing something. At any rate I am mighty
glad that you have gone into both rowing and running, and I am still more
pleased that you seem to be doing well in your studies. I do not mind if you
do fall off a little this month.

As usual, I am up to my ears in work. I am now trying to dictate the
various speeches I am to make this spring, so that I shall be able to take a
five-days’ holiday at Pme Knot m May and to go back to Sagamore by the
middle of June. Archie the other day plaintively remarked that he thought I
was being more attacked now than I had been at any time before since I was
President; and upon my word I am inclined to think he was right The labor
people insisted upon having a row with me, and after having made every
effort to avoid it I concluded that it could not longer be avoided and that
I had better meet the attack aggressively and fearlessly in my letter to the
Moyer-Haywood Defense Association.

Taft is back m splendid trim from his trip to Panama, Cuba and Porto
Rico. It is the greatest possible comfort having him and Root with me. They
are both really wonderful men I most earnestly hope and I am inclined to
believe that we shall be able to nominate Taft for President. Of course this

655

is to be kept strictly quiet, as I cannot, as President, take any part in getting
him the nomination. Your loving father

4310 * TO KOGORO TAKAHIRA Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, April 28, 1907

My dear Mr. Ambassador: I have your letter of April 3d.

Permit me first to congratulate you upon your appointment to your new
post, 1 and upon the distinguished honor accorded to you by His Majesty the
Emperor of Japan in conferring on you the Grand Cordon of the Imperial
Order of the Bising Sun. The news gave me personal pleasure, for, as I think
you need not be assured, you won my high regard and esteem while you
were Minister at Washington, and in particular during the trying months
when we were thrown together so intimately at the time of the peace negotia-
tions.

As for the San Francisco incident, it caused me more concern than you
can imagine. But such international incidents are from time to time inevitable
as between any nations. The business of statesmen is to try to close them suc-
cessfully and in a way to leave behind as little hard feeling as possible. You
do not need to have me tell you of my high regard and admiration for the
people of Japan and my resolute purpose to work m all ways for the friend-
ship and good understanding between the American and Japanese Govern-
ments and peoples. All nations have advanced far on the path of international
good will and fair dealing in the last few centuries; but we all of us have still
a long way to go. Fifty years ago even educated Americans and Japanese
would have risked a good deal in going to one another’s countries. Now,
all gentlemen, all educated men of your country and of mine can visit or stay
each in the other’s land, as travelers or students, as scientists or artists, as
professional men or merchants, and be sure not merely of good treatment
but of heartiest welcome; and this whether it is the American who comes to
Japan or the Japanese who comes to America. But as yet we are not at the
point where it is possible that the classes of citizens of the two countries who
are more suspicious and less broad-minded should feel m the same way about
one another, and above all is this true when they compete m their labor.
This feeling is the same m Japan as m the United States. If tens of thousands
of American miners went to Sakhalin to take up the mines, if tens of thou-
sands of American laborers went to Japan itself to compete with the laboring
men there, a rivalry would be sure soon to spring up which could not be
fortunate in its effect. There would certainly then tend to grow up m Japan
the same feeling toward Americans that now influences you m forbidding

1 Takahira had been made Japanese ambassador to Italy, m 1908 he succeeded Aoki

as ambassador to the United States

656

Chinese laborers to come to Japan. I think it very greatly for the interests
of both nations that the laborers of neither should go to the other. As I
have said, my dear Mr. Ambassador, while we have all of us traveled far on
the road of proper international relations, we have a long distance yet to go,
and I feel that it is the part of wise statesmanship to go so carefully as not to
jeopardize the future. A couple of centuries ago, when French and Flemish
workmen came to England, being driven from their homes by religious
persecution, the English workmen, altho of the same creed, violently as-
sailed them and protested against their presence even to the point of mob
violence. Now, we have gone so far along that this danger has been past. I
firmly believe that in another generation or two the danger of any trouble
on any such grounds between Japan and the Umted States will have past —
just as now what would have seemed impossible half a century ago has come
to pass, and all Japanese and American gentlemen, men of letters, scientists,
professional men, and the like, can meet together on terms of the heartiest
friendship and good will; but if we should try to hurry things too much
there would be risk of disaster. So I think that the laboring people of each
country had better not, at this time, go to the other’s country.

With high regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4311 * TO ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS Roosevelt MSS .

Confidential Washington, April 29, 1907

Dear Governor . On the one hand your letter pleases me, and on the other
hand it gives me concern. I do not believe that conditions have arisen which
require me to alter the determination I exprest on the night of the election,
nor do I believe that any such conditions can arise. But this does not mean
that I am not in absolute and entire sympathy with your view of the present
crisis in the Republican party As you say, we cannot submit to the domina-
tion in the Republican party of those selfish interests which have long felt
that the Government was simply an instrument to further their ends; nor can
we afford to let the Republican party drift on such an issue As you say,
the struggle should not be over men, but over policies and principles. We
should be concerned with the nomination of any particular man only to the
extent of knowing that in addition to his other qualifications he is sincerely
and zealously devoted to the great progressive and reforming movement to
which, as I look at it, the Republican party is now no less committed in the
nation at large than in States like Iowa, and in which we cannot tolerate a
halt.

If at any time you are to be here I should like to talk over the situation
at length with you ? Sincerely yours

657

4312 • TO WHITELAW REID

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, May i, 1907

My dear Mr. Ambassador: This will be presented by Commander Albert
Gleaves, U. S. Navy, who is abroad to inspect the torpedo factories in
Europe with special reference to their management and equipment. 1 He also
wishes to investigate as far as possible the foreign systems of torpedoes and
mines. I am personally interested in the success of Commander Gleaves’ un-
dertaking, and any assistance you may give him will be appreciated by me. As
the subject of torpedoes and mines is usually closely guarded from outside
scrutiny, I have no doubt that your good offices will materially aid in ob-
taining the desired information. For obvious reasons it is not deemed advis-
able to make this the subject of official communication. 2 Sincerely yours

4313 • TO HERBERT JAMES HAGERMAN Roosevelt MsS.

Washington, May 1, 1907

My dear Mr. Hagerman: Mr. Gifford Pinchot has presented to me your
telegram to him in which you ask that it be brought to my personal attention,
stating that hundreds of people have sent telegrams to the President protest-
ing against my accepting your resignation, and stating furthermore that if
my action in requesting your resignation is not revoked it will be a calamity
to the Territory, and that if I will reconsider this action you are positive I
will see the injustice and unwisdom of it from every point of view. 1

This renders it necessary for me to write you very plainly. You made, as
I am informed, a good Secretary of Legation at the Court of St. Petersburg.
All that I have heard of your private life is to your credit. Furthermore, I
believe that you have done certain excellent things while you were Governor;
and of course I will permit nothing good that you have done to be undone.
But I must add that as a whole I think you have been an unsatisfactory
Governor and that your removal from the position is imperatively de-
manded. If it were not for my knowledge of your previous career and of
your standing in private life, and my consequent reluctance to believe that
your motives were as improper as certain of your acts would indicate, I
should have removed you instead of requesting your resignation. I have not

1 Gleaves, commanding officer of the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode
Island, was responsible for the construction there of the torpedo factory authorized
by the preceding session of Congress. The inability of American manufacturers to
meet navy specifications had created a critical shortage of torpedoes and necessitated
the construction of such a factory. On his trip abroad Gleaves purchased fifty
Whitehead torpedoes in England to supply the Navy until the new factory could
begin production.

2 A similar letter was sent to the American ambassadors m Germany, France,
Austria-Hungary, and Japan

1 For the background of Hagerman’s resignation, see No. 4302, note 1.

658

thought it necessary to go into any matters as to which there was any chance
of controversy, and the Department of Justice has been as anxious as I have
been to show you all consideration, and to resolve every doubt in your favor.
Assistant Attorney General Cooley m his report purposely omitted, as he in-
formed me, the inference which he believes ought legitimately to be drawn
from the facts that in the land grant transaction, wherein I believe your
conduct was blameworthy, you were actuated in your improper and pre-
sumably unlawful action by your desire to secure the aid of certain Demo-
cratic politicians in the faction fight. I decided that in this matter I would
give you the benefit of the doubt, and so as to your action in appointing six
members of the legislative council to lucrative positions, altho there seemed
to me no moral doubt that this amounted to the bartering of offices by you
in return for legislative support. As for the hundreds of persons who have
telegraphed me on your account, I cannot say that I have seen all of the
telegrams, but I have seen a great many of them. I have received an even
larger number from persons in New Mexico who protested against your
retention in office. I have also received numerous statements to the effect that
neither set of telegrams was really spontaneous. There has been no single in-
stance in which the appointment of Mr. Curry as your successor has not
received hearty commendation.

I found that it was not necessary to consider anything save Assistant
Attorney General Cooley’s letter, from the Department of Justice. This sets
forth a state of facts which your personal explanations, when before me, in
no way relieved, and which make it impossible, in my judgment, to retain
you in office unless I am content to abandon all idea of holding public officers
in New Mexico, or indeed elsewhere, to any proper standard of official
conduct. This report from the Department of Justice related to your delivery
of certain deeds to the Pennsylvania Development Company. It appears that
the grant of land, which was agreed to before you became Governor, was
on its face grossly fraudulent; and that the transaction could not be com-
pleted save by your action, made with full knowledge of its fraudulent char-
acter. An investigation into the matter of these New Mexican land grants had
been made by the Secretary of the Interior and submitted to Congress. The
Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands of the House, Hon. John F.
Lacey, on May 17, 1906, wrote to the Secretary of the Interior that the pro-
posed grant would be a violation of law; the particular grant referred to
being, as the Secretary of the Interior officially stated, in all essential re-
spects the same as the grant you consummated. You state that this document
was never officially called to your attention, but it appears that you certainly
had knowledge of it when you acted, and it further appears that the Com-
missioner of Public Lands, in view of the report, exprest his unwillingness
to deliver the deeds to the representative of the Pennsylvania Development
Company, Mr. Hopewell. It was his business, and not yours, and you could
only act m his absence; tho of course you could have removed him, if you

659

had been willing to remove him, for refusing to take the improper and
fraudulent action which in his absence you took on his behalf. You, however,
obtained an opinion from the Attorney General (the same gentleman whom
the newspapers report as now organizing meetings to ask for your retention
in office), which opinion Mr. Cooley rightly stigmatizes as “an absurdity,”
for as Mr. Cooley says, it is only explicable on the ground, either that the
Attorney General thought that there was no absolute evidence of a violation
of the law (a conclusion which it was inconceivable he could have reached
or that you could have reached), or else that as there were difficulties attend-
ant upon the enforcement of the law you should go out of your way to
violate it. You took advantage of the absence of the Commissioner of Public
Lands on official business to go yourself with the Attorney General, Mr.
Reid, to his office and yourself to complete the transaction. It was there
suggested to you by a clerk in the land office that the matter should be
delayed until the Commissioner could be communicated with, as if you wired
him it would be possible to get him back in Santa Fe inside of two days.
You refused to permit this delay; altho there was absolutely no reason what-
ever for such refusal on your part You directed the clerk to compute the
amount due as payment of the principal and interest, and then asked him to
deliver the deeds, to which he replied that he had no powet to do so and
that the seal had not been affixt to twenty-three of them. You then directed
him to bring all the papers to your office together with the seal of the Board
of Public Lands, and in the presence of the clerk and of Mr. Hopewell, the
beneficiary of your grossly improper and probably unlawful conduct, you
affixt the seals to the twenty-three deeds and handing them to Hopewell
asked if he considered that a delivery. Hopewell replied that he did, and
handed them back to you with the request that they be recorded on the
deed records of the Commissioner of Public Lands. You handed them to the
clerk with instructions to have them recorded and these instructions were
carried out. The deeds were returned to you and you handed them to the at-
torney of the Pennsylvania Development Company. You accepted from Mr.
Hopewell his personal check for $11,113.74, which you subsequently de-
posited in the office of the Commissioner of Public Lands. The Department of
Justice reports that-

It seems entirely clear that Governor Hagerman’s action was both illegal and
improper.

t Congress J une 2I > *898, supra, and section 1, chapter «24», Laws

01 New Mexico, 1895, supra , clearly made the contract illegal at the time Gov-
ernor Hagerman alleges it was entered into. The delivery of the deeds could not
have been enforced by the grantees, or by the Pennsylvania Development Com-
pany which was not a party to the contract The Governor had every reason to
believe, owing to his correspondence with the Secretary of the Interior, that the
transaction was of very doubtful legality, in spite of the opinion of his Attorney
Cxeneral. It was clearly his duty, in my judgment, to withhold delivery of the
eeas and let the matter be tested in the courts if the grantees named m the deeds

660

saw fit to mandamus the Commissioner of Public Lands- His action in usurp ing
the duties of the Commissioner in his absence was both illegal and unjustifiable. It
was entirely competent for him to enforce the carrying out of his wishes by
administrative methods, m removing a public official and appointing in his place
someone in sympathy with his policies, but it was neither legal nor justifiable to
adopt the course he did.

With the above statement I entirely agree If I permit such an act by the
highest officer in the Territory to go unpunished, I cannot hold to account
any subordinate official for 'any infraction of his duty. It was a grave question
m my mind whether I ought not to remove you instead of merely asking
your resignation. I resolved the doubt in your favor and requested your
resignation. Under no circumstances would I reconsider this action.

Secretary Root has handed me a long telegram from your father in which
he states that he wishes me to delay my action on your resignation until you
have had time to answer the charges made against you, which he further
states are well known to be unfounded, and made by party freebooters
to restore themselves to power. Apparently your father does not know, or
disregards, the fact that these charges are combined in the statement above
referred to from the Department of Justice and in the records of the Interior
Department, that there is not the slightest question as to the facts which were
admitted by you in your interview with me as well as in your interview
with Secretary Garfield; and that you had a full hearing before Secretary
Garfield and before me. Under these circumstances what your father means
by saying that the charges are unfounded I am unable to imagine. If any
party freebooter, or anyone else, is guilty of conduct such as yours I will
treat him just as I have treated you. With the gossip that your father repeats
and the inferences that he draws therefrom I have no concern. As to the
charges he by inference makes against others I can only say that any facts
that he will give me against anyone I will consider if I have the power to do
so. Charges of a very grave character were made to me against your father
himself in connection with his land transactions m the past. Whether they
were true or not I cannot say, because a preliminary investigation showed
that action on them would be barred by the statute of limitations.

No one suggested to me the appointment of Captain Curry as your suc-
cessor. The idea was my own, because I wisht under the extraordinary cir-
cumstances in New Mexico to find some man whom I personally knew and
in whose uprightness, strength of character and knowledge of the people and
the circumstances I could have entire confidence. Captain Curry was one of
the best men in my regiment He has been away from New Mexico for
eight years, so that he is in no shape or way identified with any factional
trouble therein. I do not even know his politics. During these eight years he
has done distinguished military and civil service in the Philippines, not only
having shown great gallantry in action but marked administrative ability
when in charge of the Manila police force and afterwards in various other

<5<5i

positions, including that of Governor in the provinces. As far as I know there
has been universal approval in New Mexico of his choice; and approval of
the choice of Captain Curry as Governor is incompatible with the existence
on the part of those approving it of either the hope or the desire to see
crooked methods obtain m the New Mexican government Very truly yours

4314 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt MsS .

Private Washington, May 3, 1907

My dear Senator: I liked your Galena speech, but I a good deal more than
“like” the articles you are writing in response to Bryan . 1 1 think that in point
of courage, good-natured, sound and penetrating judgment, and far-reaching
grasp of the situation, they are better than anything of the kind that I have
come across by any public man in recent years. I am not given to hyperbolic
statement, and such a statement as the above expresses my cool opinion. I
have been immensely pleased both with the resolution and the moderation of
your attitude. Your articles can be used as a tract by those who wish to see
the existing evils cut out, and they can be used as a tract by those who wish
to stop any movement of reckless violence nominally with the purpose of
cutting them out. I do not see how you could have rendered a greater public
service than in these articles.

With warm regards, believe me, Faithfully yours

4315 • TO WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE Roosevelt MSS .

Confidential Washington, May 8, 1907

My dear White: I have your letter of the 7th and return Senator Borah’s let-
ter herewith. Few things have given me more concern than that Borah mat-
ter. 1 It was most unfortunate that this misconduct in connection with the
timber stealing should have happened to come to a head just now. But of

x In his speech at Galena, Illinois, on Grant’s birthday, April 27, Beveridge sum-
marized many of the views he expressed more fully m a series of articles appearing
in the Reader Magazine from March 1907 to February 1908 m which he and Bryan
debated on trusts, imperialism, tariff, railroads, labor, the executive power, and states’
rights.

1 Borah had been indicted for complicity in the land frauds of the Barber Lumber
Company, for which he was an attorney. Newspapers friendly to the senator claimed
that the indictment was a move by the defense in the Moyer-Haywood trial to
discredit Borah, a government prosecutor of the case. Borah himself insisted that it
was an attempt of his enemies within the Idaho Republican party to rum him
politically. Before his trial and acquittal in October 1907 Roosevelt and White had
become convinced of Borah’s innocence. See Numbers 4391, 4418, and Claudius
O. Johnson, Borah of Idaho (New York, 1936), pp. 84-87.

662

course it would have been criminal folly on our part in any way to let up
on the timber thieves, in spite of my deep regret that anything should happen
that might tend to produce a miscarriage of justice in the Moyer and Hay-
wood business. As for Borah, both the Judge and the District Attorney, and
of course the grand jury, felt that he was morally guilty, and Bonaparte is
inclined to the same view, altho Bonaparte is more doubtful than the Dis-
trict Attorney and the grand jury as to whether he can be convicted. It is
a most painful matter. You have probably seen my Moyer and Haywood
correspondence. Pray treat this letter as confidential. Of course there is noth-
ing I can do except make a resolute fight against lawbreakers, whether it is
a case of dynamiters or big timber thieves.

With warm regards, believe me, Faithfully yours

4316 * TO IAN STANDISH MONTEITH HAMILTON Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, May 8, 1907

My dear General Hamilton: Your first volume was interesting and was the
best account, by all odds, that had appeared of any part of the Russian-
Japanese war, but your second volume is even more interesting. 1 I wish it
were my good luck to see you. There is an immense amount that I should
like to talk over with you. Nothing in your book imprest me more than
the account, on page 301, of that little play given by the Japanese soldiers 2
It is a very gruesome play and not one that tends to excite undiluted admira-
tion of the Japanese character; but it does give one a thoro realization of
what it is that makes them such formidable fighters. I suppose we are all of
us wondering now what effect the extraordinary increase of industrialism
in Japan will have upon the qualities which give them such an extraordinary
soldierly capacity.

Kuroki is just coming here and dines with me on Saturday. 3 I shall speak
to him of your book.

Meanwhile, I am glad that our ships have been doing so well at target
practice lately, and that the condition of the fleet seems satisfactory.

With renewed thanks, and hoping that you will soon again be on this
side of the water, and that I shall have a chance of seeing you, believe me,
Sincerely yours

1 A Staff Officer's Scrap-Book during the Russo-Japanese War (1905-1907).

2 The hero of this play, an army recruit, fearing that his affection for his family will
interfere with a wholehearted performance of military duties, kills his wife and
child “The audience [of Japanese soldiers],” wrote Hamilton, “applaud the act with
wild enthusiasm, regarding it as sublime and almost superhuman ”

3 General Kuroki, senior officer of the Japanese army, had accompanied Admiral
I j urn’s squadron on its visit to the Jamestown Exposition.

663

43^7 * T0 IRVING FISHER

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 8, 1907

My dear Professor Fisher: 1 1 sent you my public letter. 2 1 wish to put one
proviso about its being used, however. I emphatically disapprove of a Cabi-
net officer being created at the head of a Department of Health, and I would
not be willing to have my letter used to create feeling for a new Cabinet
officer to be at the head of a Department of Health So please do not use my
letter at all if your body concludes to agitate for a Department of Health. I
believe that we could with advantage have a Bureau of Health, to be put
under one of the existing Departments, but we need no additional Cabinet
officers. On the contrary, they would be a disadvantage. While we do most
urgently need a rearrangement of the bureaus and divisions of the present
Cabinet, we also need to have every executive officer of the Government
put under some Cabinet officer. I am utterly against the creation of any
independent bureau not under a Cabinet officer. 3 Sincerely yours

4318 * TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE RoOSCVelt MsS .

Washington, May 9, 1907

My dear Senator : I have your letter of the 7th instant. 1 Events have moved
so fast in the valuation business that I think it is impossible to avoid taking a
conservative ground in its favor The Northern Pacific has offered a physical
valuation of its road before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Two
other big systems are making physical valuations themselves. I think this
means that there (has got to) ought be a physical valuation. Sincerely yours

4319 * TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 12, 1907

Dear Ted : Yesterday Lodge and Root and Meyer and I were out riding and
when we came to the first jumping ground, with the brush hurdles and the
stone wall, we met Ambassador and Madame Jusserand by appointment.
Meyer had his new horse, a very fine one, I think an even better jumper

1 Irving Fisher, professor of political economy at Yale, at this time chairman of the
Committee of One Hundred on National Health formed by the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science.

2 In this letter Roosevelt praised the committee’s work and stressed the increasingly
important role the federal government was playing in the improvement of national
health.

* Roosevelt later reversed his position on the need for a department of public health,
see No. 4922

l In this letter Beveridge wrote, “I still feel that the valuation of railroads is a bad
policy.” To Roosevelt’s response he replied, “I shall follow where you lead.” The
senator later incorporated a demand for railroad valuation in the June article of his
Reader Magazine debate with Bryan See Bowers, Beveridge , p 260

664

than Roswell. We went a couple of times over the rails and the stone walls,
first singly and then together, and then he took the big brush hurdle. This
I could not stand, I don’t mind you and Fitz Lee 1 and other younger people
jumping things that I don’t, or even Mr. Bob Bacon, who is such a great
athlete, but I could not have one of my Cabinet do it, and so I put Roswell
over it. He refused once and then cleared it well, but with a very perceptible
effoit. I think that for such high jumping I am too heavy, for drest and with
the saddle it means that I am about 230 pounds for him to carry. We have
measured the hurdle, and from the take-off to the top it is just five feet, seven
inches, which is a stiff jump to be taken at any time, and especially for a
horse to take it in cold blood with my weight on top of him.

I suppose you are having to work very hard at your studies. I am rather
glad that as assistant manager you have to go about m the launch, steering
after the crew. I am sorry we got beaten by Columbia yesterday, but I sup-
pose as early as this we never are in shape. Brother Louis Frothingham was
on here yesterday. I was glad to catch a glimpse of him. Your loving father
[Handwritten] Yesterday evening I met Archie going in to his bath, and
he cordially invited me in to see the livestock, there were tadpoles in a jar,
four wee turtles in the bath tub, and a small alligator in the basin. Mademoi-
selle told me that he regarded the turtles “avec beaucoup de tendresse,” but
found the alligator “antipathetique” — I hope my spelling is right 1

4320 • to mark sullivan Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, May 13, 1907

My dear Mr . Sullivan : 1 1 enclose you a list of the judicial appointments made
by me, with certain comments in the margin. There is no body of appoint-
ments over which I exercise greater care. Not only I, but also my successive
Attorneys General, Messrs. Knox, Moody, and Bonaparte, all scrutimzed
(and continue to scrutinize) with painstaking fidelity every individual ap-
pointment. We have the papers on file in each case, and will show you all
about each case if you care to inquire; and when there was any reason to
doubt about any man we usually sent a special agent to inquire about him.
In most of the important cases I acted with some personal knowledge, and
occasionally exclusively upon personal knowledge. Of course there were a
number of cases where neither I nor the Attorney General knew the facts,
and where we could only rely upon the judgment of the local people. My
belief is not only that the men I have appointed judges stand very high, but

1 Captain Fitzhugh Lee, son of the confederate general, personal aide on Roosevelt's
staff.

1 Mark Sullivan, associate editor of Collier's Weekly , 1906-1912, editor, 1912-1917;
later, independent Washington columnist. A benevolent, conservative man, he was at
all times a faithful and delighted supporter of Theodore Roosevelt. His Our Times;
The United States , 1900-192$ (New York, 1926-1935) is a warm and winning recon-
struction of the period It is also a model of alert and perceptive reporting.

665

that they represent a considerably higher average than has been the case
under any President for as long as I have been in public life — that is, for a
quarter of a century. I shall be more than delighted to have them compared,
position for position, with, for instance, the appointees of President Cleve-
land, or, for the matter of that, with the appointees of any President of
recent years. My first consideration has in every case been to get a man of
the high character, the good sense, the trained legal ability, and the neces-
sary broad-mindedness of spirit, all of which are essential to a good judge.
My appointees are confirmed by the Senate, and it is unnecessary to say that
this meant that I had to consult the Senators before sendmg in their names;
otherwise they would not have been confirmed. It has, however, been lit-
erally a case of appointing “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” and
not at the dictation of any Senator. In the most important cases the initiative
has come from me, tho in many of the local cases, where I had no possible
means of original information, the initiative came from the Senators. Politi-
cal considerations have been in every instance not merely subordinated, but
completely and entirely subordinated, to the considerations named above,
and in a large number of cases they have been completely eliminated. They
have never been given a weight that was not entirely proper. Some of my
appointees have been men without any political influence whatever. Others
have had political influence. I have rejected great numbers of those who had
the strongest political backing. Of those that I have appointed, I think
that the proportion of those that have turned out best has been as great
among the men that had political backing as among those who had none

I make some brief comments upon the appointees in the order of their
importance. On the Supreme Court I appointed Holmes, then Chief Justice
of Massachusetts, Day, then on the Circuit Court in Ohio, and Moody, then
Attorney General. I do not suppose that anyone questions the pre-eminent
fitness of these three men.

Next in importance come the United States Circuit Judges. Of these I
have appointed twelve Of these, nine were at the time District Judges, in-
cluding Kohlsaat, of whom you spoke. While I am not certain, I believe that
of the nine, seven were Republicans — tho two or three, very independent
Republicans — and two were Democrats. They had all been excellent Dis-
trict Judges. All have made first-class Circuit Judges. Of the remaining three,
I appointed two (Richards and Van Devanter) from the Department of Jus-
tice here in Washington, both on the recommendation of Attorney General
Knox, and both most admirable men — Van Devanter perhaps in particular.
One man (Baker, of Indiana) I appointed from private life He was one of
the most distinguished lawyers in Indiana, and, as it happened, the machine
was opposed to him. He has since, as I understood, become bitter against the
administration because of a matter which I need not at present go into. With
the above facts in view, I don’t suppose that anyone will seriously maintain
that as regards the appointment of the Supreme Court and Circuit Judges

666

there is anything save the heartiest commendation to be bestowed upon
what I have done.

I now come to the United States District Judges. Of these, my original
appointments have been forty-one As regards about half of them, I had not
the same knowledge as about the men whom I appointed to the Supreme
Court and the Circuit Court; and as to this half, w T hile the Attorney General
in each case made all the inquiry he could, we had to rely largely upon the
representations made to us by the local people. Taking them m their order
on the paper, the facts as to these judges are as follows:

From Alabama I appointed Jones, a Democrat, ex-Governor of the State;
and then Hundley, a Republican, who had been a Democrat until the Bryan
movement of 1896, and who was endorsed by practically all the bench and
ninety per cent of the bar of his district, and was, in the judgment of the
Attorney General and myself, far and away the best Republican we could
get I didn’t wish to appoint two Democrats. In California, Van Fleet was
backed by the local organization. I knew all about him personally, as did
Secretary Metcalf, who came from his home city; and I believe he was the
best appointment we could possibly make. In Colorado, Lewis was appointed
from my private knowledge of him, after careful inquiry, because I had be-
come convinced that he was better than the man the Republican organiza-
tion was backing. In Connecticut, James P. Platt was the son of Orville H.
Platt. He was warmly recommended by Circuit Judge Townsend, as well as
by the organization. He has made a good judge. In Illinois, Francis M. Wright
was promoted by me from the Court of Claims, where he had made an ex-
cellent record. Bethea was promoted from the position of United States Dis-
trict Attorney, where he had done particularly well. Landis was one of two
recommended by the organization. He was the brother of two Indiana con-
gressmen. After investigation I came to the conclusion that he was the best
man to appoint, and he has been, without any exception, as good a man as I
have yet found on the bench, or have been able to put upon the bench. In
Indiana, Anderson was appointed against the wish of the local organization;
m Iowa, Reed, in ‘accordance with the desire of the organization. I knew
nothing personally of either judge, but believed they were both good. They
have been good judges. In Kansas, Pollock was appointed on the recommen-
dation of Attorney General Knox, after he had most carefully gone over the
whole situation. It was against the wish of the organization and over the pro-
test of the big railroads. In Louisiana, Saunders, a Democrat, was appointed
by me, on my personal knowledge, and chiefly on the recommendation of
Justice White of the Supreme Court. In Maine, Hale was a brother of the
senator, and backed by the organization, but also by the entire Maine bar.
In Massachusetts, Dodge was recommended by the organization, and his ap-
pointment hailed with the utmost satisfaction by the entire bench and bar.
In Michigan, I had to turn down the organization candidate and appoint
Knappen, who, from outside information, I had become convinced was head

66 7

and shoulders the best man for judge in the State. In Minnesota, Morris was
a Congressman whom I knew, and for whose character and ability I had the
highest regard. There could have been no better appointment. In Mississippi,
Niles was already on the bench. In Missouri, I promoted a Democratic judge
to be Circuit Judge, and filled his place by an old man from the city bar of
very high standing, who resigned in two years, and I then filled his place
by a man of nearly the same age, the District Attorney, Dyer, a member of
the country bar, being from Pike County. Dyer had been an excellent Dis-
trict Attorney. I knew him personally. The city bar did not like him and
wisht one of their own number. The country bar was enthusiastically for
him (especially Pike County) and resented the attitude of the city bar m
being against him. Like his predecessor, Finkelnburg, he is too old, but other-
wise I believe him to be an admirable man. The organization backed both,
but he was worthy and excellent and .... In Montana, Hunt was appointed
on my personal initiative. I knew him well and a finer fellow does not exist.
The organization acquiesced in his appointment. In Nebraska and Nevada,
Munger and Farrington were suggested by the organization — that is, by
the Senators; and after careful inquiry we came to the conclusion that they
were excellent men. In New Jersey, Lanning and Cross were both suggested
by the organization, after much consultation with the Department of Justice
and with the hearty assent of all the bar. In New York, George Ray was
backed by the two Senators and the local organization of his country dis-
trict. He had been for many years Chairman of the House Committee on
the Judiciary He has been an excellent judge. Holt, Hough and Chatfield
were opposed by the organization, but in each case the Senators ultimately
yielded to my wishes. They were chosen by myself after consultation with
Root, the Attorney General, and the local leaders of the bar. In Ohio, Tayler
and Sater were both appointed partly from my personal knowledge, partly
from knowledge I gamed about them from Taft and Day, the organizations
favoring other men in each case. In Oregon, Wolverton was appointed m
spite of the original opposition of the organization, after the Attorney Gen-
eral had consulted Heney and everyone else he could get at out there. He
is an excellent man. In Pennsylvania the appointments were made on the rec-
ommendation of Attorney General Knox. In Tennessee the appointment was
made on the recommendation of the organization, and has proved most satis-
factory. In Texas I knew the man personally and could vouch for his char-
acter. In Vermont everybody, including the Democratic members of the bar,
advocated the appointment of Martin, as was true in the case of Whitson, in
Washington. In Virginia, H. Clay McDowell, a grandson of Henry Clay,
was first called to my attention by Fox, the novelist, who lived at Big Stone
Gap with him. I Iookt him up personally and found he was just the type of
man to appoint. In West Virginia, Dayton was a Congressman, whom I
knew well, and who was one of the very best men in Congress. He has been
an admirable judge. In Wisconsin, both men were recommended by Senator

668

Spooner, the Attorney General making inquiries and satisfying himself that
they were good men. One of them was to fill the place of a Democrat whom
I promoted to be Circuit Judge.

In the District of Columbia, on the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court,
and the Court of Claims, I filled in each instance the Chief Justiceship by
promotion, two of the three men whom I thus promoted bemg Democrats
originally appointed by Cleveland I had personal knowledge of all the men
appointed and believe that without exception they were good men. Some of
them were backed by the local organizations and some of them were not. In
the Territories I generally acted upon the advice of my local advisers, save
m Porto Rico, where I appointed the judges from my personal knowledge.
All have done well. In Arizona the Chief Justice, Edward Kent, was also my
own personal choice. He was living in Colorado at the time. He is a Harvard
fellow, son of the famous Governor Kent, of Maine, for whom “Maine went
hell bent,” and one of the most upright men I know. In New Mexico two
of the men, McFie and Abbott, were known to me personally as possessing
very high qualities. In most of the other territorial judgeships I had to act
upon the advice of others, in Alaska, for instance, where I appointed Moore
on Knox’s suggestion, tho Gunnison I knew about personally.

I can only reiterate my belief that these appointments and promotions,
perhaps about one hundred in number all told, represent not only the most
painstaking care, but what I am firmly convinced is a successful effort to get
as high-grade men as could be obtained anywhere by any President. If by
“politics” is meant anything base and sordid, there was nothing of the kind
in their appointment; but in the larger and more proper sense and from the
standpoint of the interest of the community, I think that the appointment of
almost every one of them was emphatically “good politics.” Sincerely yours

[. Handwritten ] Often there will be bitter, but entirely honest, disagree-
ment as to the merits of two men. Thus in New York at the moment, the
country bar almost to a man wish Ray promoted to the Circuit Judgeship,
and are much irritated at the city bar’s insisting as a matter of course upon
Holt. Neither side has any patience with or understanding of the other’s
attitude. I am rather inclined to appoint an outside candidate. 2 The case, by
the way, offers some analogy to that of the Finkelnburg-Dyer appointments
in Missouri.

4321 TO NICHOLAS LONGWORTH Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, May 14, 1907

Dear Nick: I have turned your letter over to Will Taft. I think there should
be very careful consideration given to this question of the collectorship, .and
that all of you should weigh well the consequences of the fight before you

“Roosevelt did just that, naming Walter Chadwick Noyes of Connecticut to the

vacant circuit judgeship.

669

go into it. Mind you, I am entirely willing to go into it, but I want to know
that our people understand fully what they are up to before they take it up. 1

I look forward to receiving your next letter giving the result of the Co-
lumbus conference. 2

Tell Alice I never received the letter she wrote her mother that she had
sent me. Is it true that “Aunt la” has published a fresh collection of corre-
spondence? 3 I am not particularly interested, because I think my most bril-
liant letters have already been published by the good lady!

With love to Alice, Always yours

[. Handwritten ] I have just seen Taft; he thinks that to change the col-
lector now would cause much more trouble than good, I am inclined to
think that this is true; at any rate we must be very sure of our ground before
acting.

4322 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 22, 1907

Dear Cabot: I have your letter of the 21st enclosing a letter from Edgar R.
Champlin, 1 with a copy of the Japan Daily Mail . Frankly, I am not much
imprest by his letter or by the article. He gives two bits of advice. One is
to increase our visible navy in the East. This is enough to show that his mili-
tary judgment is absurd. He actually wishes us to repeat the decisive and
vital blunder of Russia of dividing her navy and putting part in the Pacific
His second bit of advice is that we shall discourage the American purchase of
Japanese bonds. It would be interesting to learn how he thinks this could be
brought about.

As for the book, the review of which he sends, its thesis seems to be that
both England and Japan have entered into their present treaty as an offensive

1 Taft’s supporters wanted Roosevelt to appoint Charles L. Curtis, editor of the
Toledo Blade, as collector of internal revenue for the 10th District of Ohio in place
of the incumbent, W. V McMaken, a Foraker adherent. In accordance with Taft’s
judgment and his own, however, the President reappointed McMaken.

2 The Taft group, assisted by a recent convert, Walter F. Brown, chairman of the
Ohio Republican Central Committee, had arranged a conference of the state central
and executive committees at Columbus At this conference, scheduled for May 15,
the Taft managers confidendy expected Taft to be endorsed for President. Foraker,
on May 12, warned members of both committees not to attend. Senator Dick
chairman of the executive committee, on May 13 postponed the meeting indefinitely,
a decision to which Brown was forced to adhere.

8 Maria Storer did not add to the published Storer-Roosevelt correspondence until
1921, when her Roosevelt , the Child was privately printed; see No. 4178.

1 Edgar Ross Champlin, editorial writer for the Fall River Evening News and the

Gloucester Times.

670

one against America. As regards England, this is so wildly absurd that it
needs no comment.

I shall soon be out to ride with you. Ever yours

4 3 2 3 ' T0 kentaro kaneko Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, May 23, 1907

My dear Baron Kaneko: I much appreciate your thought of Archie. The
little fellow was very sick but is now all right. His mother and I have just had
him on a short trip in the country.

I was delighted to meet General Kuroki and Admiral Ijuin with their
staffs. General Kuroki is, of course, one of the most illustrious men living.
Thru his interpreter, a very able young staff officer, I spoke to him a little
about our troubles on the Pacific Slope.

Nothing during my Presidency has given me more concern than these
troubles. 1 History often teaches by example and I think we can best under-
stand just what the situation is and how it ought to be met by taking into
account the change in general international relations during the last two or
three centuries. During this period all the civilized nations have made great
progress. During the first part of it Japan did not appear in the general
progress, but for the last half century she has gone ahead so much faster than
any other nation that I think we can fairly say that taking the last three
centuries together her advance has been on the whole greater than that of any
other nation. But all have advanced, and especially m the way in which the
people of each treat the people of other nationalities. Two centuries ago there
was the greatest suspicion and malevolence exhibited by all the people high
and low of each European country for all the people high and low of every
other European country, with but few exceptions. The cultivated people of
the different countries, however, had already begun to treat with one an-
other on good terms. But when, for instance, the Huguenots were exiled
from France, and great numbers of Huguenot workmen went to England,
and their presence excited the most violent hostility, manifesting itself even
in mob violence among the English workmen. The men were closely allied
by race and religion, they had practically the same type of ancestral culture,
and yet they were unable to get on together. Two centuries have passed, the
world has moved forward, and now there could be no repetition of such
hostilities. In the same way a marvelous progress has been made in the re-
lations of Japan with the Occidental nations. Fifty years ago you and I and
those like us in the two countries could not have traveled in one another’s
countries. We should have had very unpleasant and possibly very dangerous

1 Three days earlier a San Francisco mob had begun a series of attacks on the

Japanese and their property.

6 71

experiences But the same progress that has been going on as between na-
» tions in Europe and their descendants m America and Australia has also been
going on as between Japan and the Occidental nations. Now gentlemen, all
educated people, members of the professions, and the like, get on so well
together that they not only travel each in the other’s country, but associate
on the most intimate terms. Among the friends whom I especially value I
include a number of Japanese gentlemen. But the half century has been too
short a time for the advance to include the laboring classes of the two
countries as between themselves. Exactly as the educated classes in Europe
among the several nations grew to be able to associate together generations
before it was possible for such association to take place among the men who
had no such advantages of education, so it is evident we must not press too fast
in bringing the laboring classes of Japan and America together. Already in
the fifty years we have completely attained the goal as between the educated
and the intellectual classes of the two countries. We must be content to wait
another generation before we shall have made progress enough to permit the
same close intimacy between the classes who have had less opportunity for
cultivation, and whose lives are less easy, so that each has to feel m earning
its daily bread the pressure of the competition of the other. I have become
convinced that to try to move too far forward all at once is to incur jeopardy
of trouble. This is just as true of one nation as of the other. If scores of
thousands of American miners went to Sakhalin, or of American mechanics
to Japan or Formosa, trouble would almost certainly ensue. Just in the same
way scores of hundreds of Japanese laborers, whether agricultural or indus-
trial, are certain, chiefly because of the pressure caused thereby, to be a
source of trouble if they should come here or m Australia, I mention Australia
because it is part of the British Empire, because the Australians have dis-
criminated against continental immigration m favor of immigration from the
British Isles, and have in effect discriminated to a certain degree m favor of
immigration from England and Scotland as against immigration from Ireland.

My dear Baron, the business of statesmen is to try constantly to keep
international relations better, to do away with the causes of friction, and to
secure as nearly ideal justice as actual conditions will permit. I think that
with this object in view and facing conditions not as I would like them to be
but as they are, the best thing to do is to prevent the laboring classes of
either country from going in any numbers to the other. In a generation I
believe all need of such prevention will have passed away; and at any rate this
leaves free the opportunity for all those fit to profit by intercourse, to go
each to the other’s country. I have just appointed a commission on general
immigration which will very possibly urge restrictive measures as regards
European immigration, and which I am m hopes will be able to bring about a
method by which the result we have m view will be obtained with the
minimum friction.

With warm regards to the Baroness, believe me, Sincerely yours

4324 * T0 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, May 2 6, 1907

My dear Mr. Attorney General: I have just been in consultation with Secre-
tary Garfield about the extraordinary condition of affairs in New Mexico. 1
On his report it seems to me clear that you should start suits at once to try
to remedy, as much as can be remedied, the results that have come to the
United States from the conduct of ex-Governors Otero 2 and Hagerman and
their associates. I understand the suits must be initiated before June 3d, or
at least some of them should, so immediate action is necessary. May I ask you
to take them up forthwith*

In your consideration of the Oklahoma situation I want you to consider
one matter. 3 It is desirable that that Territory should come in as a State, and
it is very undesirable that we should be put in the dilemma of having an
objectionable constitution which is not sufficiently objectionable to make it
perfectly clear that we are right, no matter whether we admit or refuse to
admit the State. Is it not worth while to consider whether you, or perhaps
Taft, in a speech should not point out the worst features of the constitution,
or the features that are so bad that we cannot submit to them? If this is done,
and the people deliberately refuse to amend the constitution so as to get rid
of the objectionable features, we are entirely clear. It is a very serious thing to

1 Investigators in New Mexico from the Department of the Interior had discovered
evidence of extensive illegal land transactions by large lumber corporations (see
Numbers 4302, 4394). Territorial officials, Garfield told the President, “must have
been fully aware of the illegality of the sales ” The Secretary of the Interior, there-
fore, had asked Raynolds, the acting Governor of the Territory, and Morgan O.
Llewellyn, the United States Surveyor General, the two officials still in office, to
account for their relations to these sales Their failure to make satisfactory answers
was partially responsible for their subsequent removal, see Numbers 4389, 4525.

The Justice Department initiated suits against the lumber companies. It also sent
Ormsby McHarg and Peyton Gordon as special agents to make further investiga-
tions, see Numbers 4394, 4525.

2 Miguel Antomo Otero, Governor of New Mexico, 1897-1906, treasurer of the
Territory, 1909-1911.

8 Roosevelt had requested Bonaparte to determine whether the constitution proposed
for Oklahoma was contrary to the national Constitution or the enabling act that
permitted the Territory to become a state Certain proposed election proceedings
and the state tax for schools were of doubtful legality. Perhaps more important to
Roosevelt were the Republican protests at the “outrageous gerrymandering” of the
congressional districts by the constitutional convention dominated by Democrats.
The enab lin g act had named the counties which were to constitute the congressional
districts of the proposed state. The convention retamed the names of these counties
but completely altered their boundaries. Democrats countered that the Republicans
were using the gerrymandering issue as a pretext for preventing the admission of
what would clearly be a Democratic state until after the election of 1908.

Bonaparte decided that “the alleged discrepancies m the legislative representation
between the different sections of the proposed state” was the only valid charge for
annulling the constitution. He therefore recommended that Roosevelt order a
special federal census for Oklahoma. After the completion of this census in
September 1907 the congressional districts were redefined to conform with popula-
tion statistics Roosevelt then accepted the Oklahoma constitution.

<573

refuse to admit the State, and I am inclined to think we should make clear,
while we are trying to remedy what they have done, just what is fatal. Sin-
cerely yours

P.S, I suggest the following form to be used if, as seems likely, we cannot
proceed against the railroad companies who go into traffic agreements:

There are so many injurious violations of the law requiring the entire time
and force of the Department of Justice that it is not deemed advisable to abandon
such cases in order to devote the time of courts and officers to associations which,
altho perhaps technically violations of law, are not in fact unreasonable or in-
jurious. Technical violations of law must be postponed to violations which are
substantial.

Will you talk about this with me tomorrow at the Cabinet meeting^

4325 • TO WILLIAM EMLEN ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, May 27, 1907

Dear Emlen: I am exceedingly sorry you cannot go along on the trip, for I
had lookt forward to seeing you.

I am interested in what you say about the feeling that there will be trouble
because of poor crops. When Pierpont Morgan was on here he was insisting
as at that time (three months ago) many railroad men were insisting, that
the chief trouble came because of the fact that the crops were too good. He
said that another season of very good crops might bring about a veritable
disaster! I did not know that any of the legislation in the different States
had gone thru in a shape that had really worked harm, except that I remem-
ber one two-cent law about passengers in some State. Here again it is but
three months since the railroad men were insisting to me that it was impera-
tive that we should announce that we were going to have national legislation
so as to shut off State legislation. Now, you say they think there should be
no legislation. Well, if dull times come, a discussion about the cause will be
more or less academic so far as the masses are concerned. I am very much
afraid that the crops are not going to be good this year. They certainly won’t
be if the summer is as bad as the spring has been, and if that is the case the
farmers will alternately blame the railroads, and blame the Government for
not taking drastic measures against the railroads, with just the same wisdom
that the railroads show in blaming the Government for not permitting every
kind of iniquity to be perpetrated with impunity. I enclose you a clipping
relating an incident which is merely one of very many, and it is these inci-
dents that have rendered it simply out of the question, unless we are willing
to invite ruin, not to have efficient Government control of the railroads; just
as there is in England and in other civilized countries, and as there is m Mas-
sachusetts, for instance, here at home. To trust to the slow growth of high
public spirit in Harriman and Company is a little bit like the attitude of
those men who cater to the labor vote in politics, who always state that we

674

must trust to the growth of the spirit of order in mobs and not try to quell
them by the use of an efficient police force. It is no more possible to sub-
stitute the growth of morality for the interference of the Government in one
case than in the other. Always yours

4326 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

On the train, June 1, 1907

Blessed Kermit : On Monday Mother and I with Ethel, Postmaster General
Meyer and Captain Fitz Lee rode down to Mount Vernon. Meyer is not
only a first-class Cabinet officer, but a great addition in every way, for he
is an out-of-door man, always ready for any fun. We had a lovely time, tho
the weather would not have suited some riders, for there were heavy show-
ers and occasionally drenching downpours all day. But mother is very good
on just such occasions. Once we had to stop and stay for an hour under the
porch of a little, empty log cabin, with the horses m a crazy shed. The woods
were green and lovely, the roads soft for the horses’ feet — very soft, indeed
— and Mount Vernon as impressive as always. We were glad to ride up to
it by the route which Washington himself generally took.

On Tuesday evening I started on my western trip — a day earlier than
I had expected because of poor Mrs. McKinley’s death. Poor soul, it was a
mercy for her to go, and she had long been wishing it. I was very much
touched this year when she sent Archie a pair of slippers which she had kmt,
and a little photograph of President McKinley. Root, Garfield and Secretary
Wilson went out with me to Canton and the funeral. We lunched with Judge
Day; then we went around to the house and followed the funeral to the tomb
m which the poor lady was laid beside her dead husband. They have left no
children, and her death seemed to me like the final drawing of the curtain.
As we sat m the house listening to the funeral service I kept thinking of the
different times I had seen McKinley and had been in that house before. I
first met him when we were both of us delegates to the Republican National
Convention twenty-three years ago The next year we both spoke on the
same platform at Cleveland, where I was John Hay’s guest, and while I was
Civil Service Commissioner and he was prominent in the House I saw him a
number of times and once had him to dinner. Then eleven years ago when
he was running first against Bryan, Lodge and I stopt at his house in Canton
to see him when we were on a campaigmng trip. At that time the little city
was jammed with visitors. I remember perfectly well one funny old couple
from the country who had gravely sat down in the front yard of McKin-
ley’s house to eat their dinner which they had brought with them. The house
itself was filled to overflowing, and the people had tramped over the yard
so that not a spear of grass was left, and they had taken away all the wooden
pickets for mementos, so that finally an iron railing had to be put up instead.
That was the beginning of McKinley’s time of tremendous popularity which

675

lasted just five years, when it was closed by the bullet of Czolgosz. And now
in his own city as I followed the hearse of his wife thru enormous throngs
of people I was half irritated and half amused at the way in which their in-
, terest was centered wholly upon the live President, and not upon either the
dead wife of the dead President or upon his memory itself. I had a difficulty
in trying to prevent (all) the bystanders from continuously cheering and ap-
plauding me in the funeral procession, and they kept pointing me out and
calling out to me and centering their whole interest upon me. I would not
be willing quite to admit that I was a live dog; but I could not help thinking
all the time of the Biblical comparison between the relative importance of
the live dog and the dead lion. But of course it is not right to feel in the
least cynical about such things. When any one of us has lived his life, why,
he has lived it, and that is all there is to say about it, whether it comes to an
end by his death or by his retirement; and not only has the man no business
to expect that the kindly memory of him will be vivid in comparison with
the interest taken in the new hero of the moment, but it would not be at all
healthy or desirable that such a state of things should exist. What is past is
past; while men need not forget it; yet with the enormous bulk of men it is
right and necessary that they should turn to the instant need 'of the present.
When all is said and done it is true that it is the live dog and not the dead
lion that must be reckoned with, and the fact need not interfere in the least
with the ultimate judgment past (or not past) upon both, when both are
dead.

From Canton we took Vice-President Fairbanks with us on our way to
Indianapolis. That evening we stopt two or three miles outside of Akron
and Fairbanks and I strolled off for an hour’s walk. I was very glad I had
gone; in the first place the country was lovely, and among the various birds
I saw I was especially interested in the bobolinks, which I hardly ever see as
they do not come around us at Sagamore Hill; and in the next place we past
five farmers’ houses on the way out and some of them recognized us, with
the result that we stopt at all five walking back. It was just as pleasant as
could be. They were such hearty, self-respecting people, the kind that one
is proud to think of as typically American. One of the farmers was getting
along only fairly, the other four were all prosperous, and there was a bunch
of children at each, cunning, tow-headed tots, or fine, self-respecting well-
grown young men and girls. The farmers and their wives were equally nice.
At two of the houses we were cordially asked to stay to supper, and if we
had had time I should certainly have accepted the invitations. As it was, all
I could do was to drmk a glass of milk. The little boys and some of the little
girls were playing with bat and ball. Of the young men, some were working
on farms, others were evidently employed at work in Akron. The farmers
themselves were rugged old fellows, generally with beards, while the boys
were clean-shaven, and the mothers were matronly and kind. All were so
intelligent, so self-respecting and so glad to see me, m just the right kind of

676

way, that it made one feel mighty pleased, because somehow it augured well
for the future of the country. I believe those families were typical of many
hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country districts and
smaller towns, and there is not room for an anarchist or communist in the
whole lot. They are the kind of people who have a tendency to vote right as
citizens and to make mighty good soldiers if the need comes.

Next day, Thursday, we reached Indianapolis, where we had the Decora-
tion Day ceremonies at the unveiling of Lawton’s statue. Before we reached
Indianapolis I had to make speeches from the rear platform wherever the
train stopt, and to repeat the same thing in the afternoon and evening after
we left Indianapolis. There was a big political lunch at Fairbanks’ house and
most of the people I met there were really not in sympathy with me, tho they
are supporting me; because of the popular feeling they can’t do anything else.
But I saw two real friends: Lucius Swift, whom I had sent for to come to the
house, and William Dudley Foulke, whom I took on the train with me up to
Fort Wayne that evening, having him at dinner. He was reading an inter-
leaved English and Italian edition of Dante’s Paradise — I have three books:
Southey’s Cid, f de La Gorce’s Histoire de la Seconde Republique , and the
Travels of Marco Polo . The ceremonies themselves were impressive if only
from the enormous size of the crowd. There were certainly one hundred
thousand people in the streets and fifty thousand additional grouped around
the grandstand to hear the speeches. Of course I could not make half of them
hear me. Those that could hear me listened very attentively while I spoke
for an hour and a quarter on the railway question , 1 having opened, of course,
with a tribute to the veterans. Mrs. Lawton was on the stand with her three
tall, pretty daughters, and Mrs. Oliver P. Morton, the widow of the great
war Governor, a very old lady. I was glad I was able to pay so sincere a
tribute to the husbands of both. After the ceremony we drove out to the
cemetery where I left a wreath on Harrison’s grave. Next morning early
the train was in Michigan, and as it was a way train crowds had gathered
with cannon and bands at every little station before I was up, and much to
my chagrin I had to disappoint the first two or three, tho I made it up that
evening when we again past by and stopt at the same places. I had been re-
ceived with the utmost enthusiasm in Ohio and Indiana, but Michigan simply
outdid itself, as for some reason which I do not understand the State has al-
ways been particularly friendly to me, and I might almost say, fond of me.
Farmers and townspeople, railroad men, their wives, their children, were
gathered at every station. If the crowd was small I shook hands with every-

1 Most of Roosevelt’s Indianapolis speech was a resume of his earlier public state-
ments on railroads. He added, however, as he had long planned to do, demands for
government supervision of issues of railroad securities, for compulsory federal incor-
poration of the roads, and for government valuation of their physical holdings. The
New York Sun , speaking as usual for the financial community, denounced the speech
as dangerously radical, but on the whole the press regarded the address with equa-
nimity if not with favor.

677

one; if it was large I would make them a very short speech. They are a fine
type, rugged people, hard working, self-respecting, and on the whole with
good ideals of duty and conduct. At one town I stopt on the telegraphic
request of the mayor and all the citizens, because an old boy named Bob
McClellan lived there, who had worked with me on the roundup more than
twenty years ago, and once when I was hunting lost horses I struck his cabin
and spent the night, sleeping in the same bunk with him. It was amusing and
touching to see the intense interest that all the town took in rushing him for-
ward and hoisting him up to shake hands with me, and then listemng with de-
lighted attention to our exchange of reminiscences. They evidently felt that
all he had told them of his former intimacy and association with me had been
amply corroborated.

At Lansing, the State Capital, I was driven in the usual procession, thru
the usual crowd, to the State House, and spoke first to the outside crowd
from the balcony and then to the two Houses of the Legislature, repressing
or evading loud outcries that I take a third term. Then I drove out to the
Agricultural College, where after lunch I made over an hour’s speech to some
twenty thousand people in the open air . 2 Secretary Wilson, Gifford Pinchot,
and an old friend, President Angell 3 of the University of Michigan, were
all given degrees; and I took back with me on the cars to Pittsburgh (which
we reached this morning) Benjamin Ide Wheeler, the President of the Uni-
versity of California. I think you know his Life of Alexander the Great,
which I like much. This morning we have been going up the Allegheny for
many miles. After leaving Pittsburgh we went thru a continuous series of
steel and iron towns. It was extraordinarily picturesque, tho in a forbidding
kind of way. The morning was misty, with showers of rain. The flames from
the pipes and doors of the blast furnaces flickered red thru the haze. The
huge chimneys and machinery were strange and monstrous in shape. From
the funnels the smoke came saffron, orange, green and blue, so that the colors
were like Turner’s pictures. The houses were all a grimy black, and so were
the miners and metal workers and railroad men who crowded around the
rear end of the car to hear me speak at every stopping place — a boisterous,
stalwart, good-humored lot.

Higher up the Allegheny the scenery became really very beautiful where
the river, and the streams running into it, wound their way thru deep-
wooded ravines, their sides broken by sheer cliffs. The flat country thru

2 At Lansmg Roosevelt reviewed and praised the achievements of the land-grant
colleges

3 James Burnll Angell, journalist, diplomat, college president, as editor of the Provi-
dence Journal , 1860-1866, a movmg supporter of Lincoln, as minister to China, 1880-
1881, and to Turkey, 1897-1898, a dignified and informed negotiator, as president of
the University of Michigan, 1871-1909, the aggressive and successful interpreter for
the university of “its vital connection with the State ” By the “strenuous endeavor”
he urged m his inaugural, he made Michigan, as he felt it should be, “the first of the
Western schools to satisfy the demands for the highest order of university work”

678

which I had been traveling for the three previous days is very lovely in its
own way; but these mountains, with their pines and their wealth of hard-
wood trees, their rocks and their brawling torrents, have a peculiar attraction
of their own.

When you come back I will go over with you the whole hunting trip
question. I strongly advise a new double-barreled shotgun. My impression
would be that if the time is ripe this would be a first-class year to try for
the chicken shooting; then I will later be able to arrange some regular big
game hunting for you. Perhaps when I get thru being President we will be
able to take a trip together to Newfoundland, or south of the Yellowstone if
the elk hunting is good. Your loving father

4327 * TO JOHN burroughs Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 2, 1907

Dear Oom John: I have written down to see if I can get information about
those passenger pigeons. It doesn’t seem to me possible that I was mistaken. 1
Nevertheless, I have had one or two curious experiences of the fallibility of
human vision, (once a cowpuncher and I firmly believed we had discovered
a village of black prairie dogs, thanks purely to the peculiar angle at which
the sunlight struck them) and just at the moment I don’t want to get into
any kind of controversy as to a personal observation of mine on natural his-
tory.

It may be that I have helped Long from the financial standpoint, for that
lying scoundrel is too shamelessly dishonest to mind the scorn of honest men
if his infamy adds to his receipts, and of course it advertises him to be in a
controversy with me. But I think I have pretty well destroyed his credit
with all decent men of even moderate intelligence. He is now solemnly pro-
ducing affidavits that horses, moose, and the like have each been killed by
wolves biting them m the heart. Affidavits are of no use when they apply to
mechanical impossibilities. If he stated that he had seen a weasel kill a deer
and then carry it to the top of a pine tree, I would not care how many affi-
davits he produced, because the feat would be mechanically impossible, and
the same is true as to the instances you quote where he got affidavits to
impossibilities, and as to this particular wolf feat. There is, however, no
excuse whatever for journals interested in education failing to rebuke in the
sharpest possible manner the school authorities who permit their children to
study or read the books of such a faker. Always yours

1 As numerous correspondents informed him, Roosevelt was not mistaken. While at
Pme Knot, Virginia, to his “utter astonishment” he had seen and properly identified
“those passenger pigeons,” the first of that species he had observed for twenty-five
years.

679

4328 * TO CLARENCE DON CLARK Roosevelt MSS,

Washington, June 2, 1907

My dear Senator Clark : It frequently happens that when men are recom-
mended to me for appointment inquiry will develop the fact of their unfit-
ness while, at the same time, the information I get comes from people who
would be hurt by having their names published in connection with it. If I
am satisfied that they are reputable people I decline to make the appointment,
and of course to make public their names would be a breach of faith on my
part and would effectually prevent my getting such information in the fu-
ture. There is no analogy between removing a man who has been appointed
and refusing to make the appointment. To follow any other course than
that I am following would be unjustifiable. In this particular case of Mr.
Camplin, if I had failed to follow this course and if I had done as you and
Mr. Mondell asked me to do I should have appointed a thoroly unfit man. 1
While I cannot give even you the name of one of my informants, altho you
would yourself, I am certain, vouch for his being entirely trustworthy, I
can give you the names of others. The two Federal judges and the Attorney
General in your State all united in stating, in the most explicit manner, that
Mr. Camplin was professionally and personally unfit for the place, and they
all stated that his professional and personal unfitness was so well known that
they were astounded that he could have been seriously recommended, and
in your case they attributed it entirely to lack of knowledge on your part.
Judge Van Devanter 2 and the Attorney General gave me this information
without any injunction of secrecy, and so did a former Chief Justice of your
State, whose name I have forgotten but who visited me in company with
the Attorney General. They gave me numerous instances of his unfitness. I
am sure, my dear Senator, with this information before you, you will en-
tirely agree with me that it is out of the question for me to consider for
one moment reopening the case. When you declined to make another rec-
ommendation I told Senator Warren I would reappoint Burke, and so far
as I am concerned the case is closed.

I need not say that I was anxious to appoint someone whom you recom-
mended. I made the appointment of the man you originally recommended
and he declined to serve. You then recommended a man whom, on investi-
gation, I found unfit for the position and I of course declined to appoint him.
You refused to make another recommendation and I appointed the man
whom Senator Warren recommended. Sincerely yours

1 Whether or not Camplin was a “thoroly unfit man,” Roosevelt’s alternative choice,
Timothy F. Burke, was of questionable fitness. Burke, the incumbent United States
attorney, had been charged with complicity in Senator Warren’s alleged illegal en-
closures, see No. 4092.

2 Willis Van Devanter, chairman of the Wyoming Republican State Committee,
1892-1894, Republican national committeeman, 1896-1900, United States Circuit
Judge for the Eighth Judicial Circuit, 1 903-1 910; Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court, 1910-1937.

680

4329 * TO MARY ELEANOR WILKINS FREEMAN Roosevelt MSS -

Washington, June < 5 , 1907

My dear Mrs . Freeman: This morning Mrs. Roosevelt and I went over the
books we have been given this year to decide upon those which we wisht to
take back to Sagamore for a permanent place in our library. Coining across
the volume you so kindly sent me, we began to talk over you and your writ-
ings and all we both of us felt we owed to you; and I cannot resist just send-
ing you a line to say so. I should think it would be a very pleasant feeling,
that of knowing that as writer one has been able to help so many, many peo-
ple. We felt that we would like to thank you for just having existed and
written! Always faithfully yours

4330 * TO JAMES WILSON Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 7, 1907

My dear Secretary Wilson : There has been placed in my hands a paper pur-
porting to be issued by the Program Committee of the Public Lands Con-
vention to be held at Denver, June 18th to 20th. 1 The prekminary discussion
of the general subject m this paper contains several statements to which I
desire to call your especial attention, as they not merely misrepresent the
attitude of the administration, but portray that attitude as the direct reverse
of what it really is.

The first and most important of these misstatements is to the effect that
there has been a change in the public land policy of the Government, which
change will result m depriving the western States of the right to settle the
public lands with citizens. This allegation directly reverses the actual facts.
The course the Government is now pursuing is to carry out the traditional
homemaking policy of the United States as to its public lands. The men most
interested in opposing the action of the administration are themselves en-
deavoring to upset the traditional course of the Government in securing the
settlement of actual homemakers on the lands, and are doing all in their
power to turn the public lands over to be exploited by men and corporations
(for the most part by very rich men and very powerful corporations) whose
interests are hostile to those of the homemakers, who wish to monopolize
the land, and then to skin it and leave it immensely impaired m value for the
generations to come.

That there may be no mistake in my meaning let me repeat this state-
ment in somewhat different words. The policy of the present administration

a The increasing Western discontent with Roosevelt’s conservation policies, especially
with the large-scale withdrawal of timber and coal lands, found expression in the
Public Lands Convention called by the Governor of Colorado. Anxious to mollify
Western opinion, Roosevelt sent Garfield, Ballinger, Pinchot, and Newell to present
the Administration’s views on conservation For a brief discussion of the convention
see Robbins, Our Landed Heritage , pp. 351-354.

681

has steadily been, is now, and will be in the future, to promote and foster
actual setting, actual homemaking on the public lands in every possible way.
Every effort of this administration has been bent to this end, in connection
with the opening of Indian reservations, with the passage of the reclamation
act, with the establishment of forest reserves, with the effort to secure proper
control of the public range. Every acre of agricultural land in every national
forest is open to settlement, under the conditions imposed by the laws of
Congress with the approval of the western members of that body. Our whole
purpose is to protect the public lands for the genuine homemaker; and to
that end I am happy to say we are preventing the absorption of great areas
of the public lands by large owners to the exclusion of honest settlers. We
have incurred the violent hostility of the individuals and corporations seek-
ing, by fraud and sometimes by violenqe, to acquire and monopolize great
tracts of public domain to the exclusion of settlers. The men whom we have
prosecuted, and those who fear prosecution by us, naturally endeavor to
break down the policy under which, and under which alone, the homemak-
er’s rights can be secured and the lands preserved for the use of himself and
his children. During the last few years this Government has been forced to
proceed criminally against man after man for theft of the public lands —
both agricultural and timber and other lands. These thefts of agricultural and
timber lands have in many cases been conducted on the largest scale; in many
cases the men engaged m them are among the wealthiest m the community,
and occupy the highest political position We have secured convictions m
many of these cases. The beneficiaries and instigators of, or participators in,
the frauds, of course disapprove the acts of the administration. But if the
administration’s policy is upset the one man w T ho would be irreparably in-
jured would be the settler, the homemaker, the man of small means, who has
taken up a farm which he intends himself to work and on the proceeds of
which he intends to support and bring up his family.

Last year the coal lands were withdrawn from settlement to enable Con-
gress to consider a law to protect the public interests against the great coal
monopolies, by leasing the right to mine the public coal. Unfortunately
Congress failed to act in the matter, and most of the coal lands have been
already restored to entry, while the remainder are being restored as rapidly
as the necessary examinations in the field can be made.

As a matter of actual fact most of the coal lands have hitherto been
taken under some forms of entry other than those of the coal entry laws,
and in many cases by actual fraud. The administration will certainly renew
its efforts to get Congress to pass a law which will do away with the fraud,
and prevent the further acquisition of the coal lands by interests which will
monopolize them; while permitting their full development m accordance
with the needs of the people.

The writers of this program state that the plan for Government control

682

of the range submitted to Congress last winter involved the perpetual owner-
ship of the lands by the Government. That this statement is not in accord
with the facts is patent to anyone taking the trouble to read the proposed
law which is thus condemned. This proposed law specifically provided that
the range land under Government control should be open to entry or loca-
tion under all of the public land laws, and provided in every way for the
protection of the rights of the settler. As a matter of fact one of the prime
reasons for advocating its passage is because if enacted it would safeguard
the rights of the homemaker on the public range far more effectively than
they are now safeguarded, and would make settlement easier and safer than
it can possibly be under present conditions. We wish to provide for legiti-
mate fencing, and it has been our experience that very often the same men
who refuse to assist in securing a law for that purpose, do their best to en-
deavor to persuade us to take no action against those who already have huge
tracts of the public domain under illegal fences.

As to the forest reserves, their creation has damaged just one class, that
is, the great lumber barons; the managers and owners of those lumber com-
panies which by illegal, fraudulent or unfair methods, have desired to get
possession of the valuable timber of the public domain, to skin the land, and
to abandon it when impoverished well-nigh to the point of worthlessness.
There are some small men who have wanted to get hold of this lumber land
for improper purposes, but they are not powerful or influential, and tho they
have sometimes been put forward to cause an agitation, the real beneficiaries
of the destruction of the forest reserves would be the great lumber compa-
nies, which would speedily monopolize them. If it had not been for the cre-
ation of the present system of forest reserves, practically every acre of
timberland in the West would now be controlled or be on the point of being
controlled by one huge lumber trust. The object of the beneficiaries of this
trust would be to exhaust the resources of the country for their own imme-
diate pecuniary benefit, and then when they had rendered it well-nigh worth-
less to turn it contemptuously over to settlers who would find too late that
those responsible for such conditions had betrayed them and had been false
to the public. The policy of the Government is to put actual settlers on
every plot of agricultural ground within the forest reserves, and then, in-
stead of turning these forests over to great corporations or standing by with
supine indifference while they are raided by timber thieves, to enforce the
law with strict honesty against all men, big or little, who try to rob the pub-
lic domain; and all the time to permit the freest use of the timber, consistent
with preserving the forests for the benefit of the next generation. If the peo-
ple of the States of the Great Plains, of the mountains, and of the Pacific
slope wish for their States a great permanent growth in prosperity they will
stand for the policy of the administration. If they stand for the policy of
the makers of this program, they should clearly realize that it is a policy of

683

skinning the land, chiefly in the temporary interest of a few huge corpora-
tions of great wealth, and to the utter impairment of its resources so far as
the future is concerned. It is absolutely necessary to ascertain in practical
fashion the best methods of reforestation, and only the National Govern-
ment can do this successfully.

In the east, the States are now painfully, and at great expense, endeavoring
to undo the effects of their former shortsighted policy m throwing away
their forest lands. Congress has before it bills to establish by purchase great
forest reserves in the White Mountains and the Southern Appalachians, and
the only argument against the bills is that of their great expense. New York
and Pennsylvania are now, late in the day, endeavoring themselves to protect
the forests which guard the headwaters of their streams. Michigan and Wis-
consin have already had their good timber stript from their forests by the
great lumber companies. But the western States, far more fortunate than their
eastern sisters in this regard, can now reserve their forests for the good of all
their citizens, without expense, if they choose to show the requisite foresight.

It has been alleged that the Government intends to make the users of
water for irrigation pay for their water. There has never been any such
intention, and no such course will ever be followed while the present admin-
istration is m existence. But owners of water power within national forests
should certainly pay something for the valuable services rendered to them
by the Government. The owners of such water power in many cases possess
what is already a great monopoly; they are in business for profit, and they
should pay for what they get. They are not being charged, and cannot be
charged, for the water so far as the national Government is concerned, but
for the protection to their watersheds, which they themselves would have
to bear the cost of supplying if the Government did not supply it for them.
There is no analogy whatever between the case of these men and of those
settlers who use water for irrigation, who have no monopoly, who are en-
gaged in supportmg their families and making homes, and for whom the
Government will do all it can to protect the sources of their water supply as
a public service without cost to them. Yours sincerely

4331 ‘TO GEORGE PEABODY WETMORE Roosevelt Mss

Washington, June 8, 1907

My dear Senator Wetmore : 1 I am very much pleased with the work of a
young sculptor named Boyle. He is a young American of Irish descent and
has done so strikingly good things. I have seen his statue of the young Indian
woman protecting her two children with a stone hatchet in her hands. It

1 George Peabody Wetmore, long-time Republican senator from Rhode Island,
chainnan of the Commission for the Extension and Completion of the Capitol, and
member of the Commission for the Lincoln Memorial.

684

not only appeals to my wild western soul, but to Lodge’s cultivated New
England one! It seems to me that he would be just the man to do the Barry
statue. 2 Sincerely yours

4332 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, June 9, 1907

Dear Will: I forgot to speak to you about one matter as to which there should
be no further delay. I wish to fill the position of Quartermaster General be-
fore the first of July. My term is drawing to a close and I want to see
marked changes made in the Quartermaster General’s department. In my
judgment either Duvall or Aleshire should be selected, and from what Root
says I believe Duvall is the best, but as to the best man I shall accept your
judgment. Please forward to me a commission for my signature just as soon
as you return. 1 We should not delay any longer. Always yours

4333 ■ TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June 9, 1907

My dear Mr. Bonaparte: While there is nothing that I know of in the actions
hitherto taken by Mr. Mellen’s road, whether as regards steamboats or rail-

1 John J. Boyle, a descendant on his father’s side of generations of stonecutters and,
on his mother’s, of blacksmiths. From this ancestry he acquired the skill and brooding
strength that are revealed in his massive works The statue referred to by Roosevelt
is “The Stone Age,” now m Philadelphia, the second of his remarkable commemo-
rations of the American Indian. He was chosen to do the statue of Commodore John
Barry for which Congress had appropriated $150,000 in 1906. It is a heroic figure now
standing in Washington.

1 On Taft’s recommendation Roosevelt appointed James Buchanan Aleshire, who
had long served in the Quartermaster’s Corps, rather than General William Penn
Duvall of the artillery. During the following year Aleshire, supported by Taft and
Roosevelt, modernized the antiquated business methods of his department. He set
up supply depots throughout the country from which, by means or a newly created
credit system, individual quartermasters could draw supplies to the extent of their
established allowances. The supply depots were in turn accountable to the Quarter-
master General’s office in Washmgton. Thus while the Washington office was no
longer required to approve of every expenditure made by base quartermasters, it did
have the information and control necessary to determine and carry out inventory
and procurement policies, for details see War Department , Annual Reports, 1908,
1,38-39,11,11-12.

Aleshire and Taft tried unsuccessfully to get congressional approval for an
increase of trained personnel to staff their new orgamzation. They pointed out that
for the past ten years the personnel allowance for the Quartermaster’s Corps had
remained the same despite a fivefold increase in the size of the Army. The Army’s
attempt to meet the situation by detailing officers of the general service to staff
duties had proved unsatisfactory to all departments concerned. Unimpressed, an
economy-minded Congress took no action during the Roosevelt administration to
enlarge the Quartermaster’s Corps.

road lines, as to which we could make legal objection, yet there are rumors
of action which he intends to take which may possibly mean that we will be
called upon to decide as to their legality. Would it not be well to advise the
District Attorney of Massachusetts to keep a close watch over the consolida-
tion of the railway lines in Massachusetts, so that he can from time to time in-
form us as to steps of which we should know^ There is evidently a good deal of
uneasiness in Massachusetts as to what will really be done in connection with
the proposed consolidation. 1 Sincerely yours

43 34 * TO GEORGE WASHINGTON GOETHALS Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, June io, 1907

My dear Colonel Goethals: The United States Government, through the
Geological Survey, the Forest Service, and associated Bureaus, is engaged m
investigating the properties and most efficient methods of using the building
materials and fuels of the United States. These investigations are so intimately
connected with the industries and welfare of the nation that they should be

1 The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad through purchase of mter-
urban traction companies and coastwise shipping lines had obtained control over
transport in Southern New England. It sought, in 1907, to extend this monopoly fur-
ther into New England by obtaining a dominant interest in the Boston and Maine
Railroad. In the early months of that year, the New Haven had quietly bought over
one third of the common stock of the Boston and Maine. A merger of the two lines, *
C S Mellen of the New Haven claimed, would greatly increase the efficiency of
operation and service of New England transport. This view was opposed by certain
elements in Massachusetts that were led by the indefatigable Louis Brandeis

Neither the fortunes of various legislative attempts m Massachusetts to prevent
the New Haven from obtaining the merger, nor the devices by which the New
Haven temporarily defeated the attempts need be investigated here. The history of
the railroad at this time is as sordid as it is intricate. It is necessary to notice in this
place only that the federal government became interested in the manipulations of the
New Haven as possible violations of the Sherman Act. Usmg data supplied by Bran-
deis to United States District Attorney French, Attorney General Bonaparte initiated
antitrust proceedings against the railroad in 1908. The case, not prosecuted during
Roosevelt’s administration, was dropped under Taft and later renewed and brought
to a successful conclusion under Wilson. It is also inter esting to notice here that Mel-
len was confident that he could rely upon the support of the President in his opera-
tions. Contrary to his expectation, Roosevelt took the initiative in bringing the federal
government, in spite of the wishes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, into the
case. While the prosecution languished in Taft’s administration, Brandeis, never
discouraged by temporary reversals, began to get the upper hand m the state
Ultimately a combination of state and federal action, and mismanagement by Mellen
wrecked the grand scheme.

For a full account, partial to Brandeis, of the New Haven developments m 1907
and later, see Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man's Life, chs. xn, xiii, for a sympathetically
critical analysis of “the most dismaying of Morgan’s ventures,” see Frederick Lewis
Allen, The Great Pierpont Morgan (New York, 1949), pp 233-238, for an excellent
economic analysis of the case, see William Z. Ripley, Railroads; Finance and Organi-
zation (New York, 1915).

686

carried forward as rapidly as possible, and should have the advantage of the
best advice and co-operation which it is possible to secure. Accordingly, I
have invited selected members of the national engineering societies and allied
organization, together with representatives of such Government Bureaus as
are carrying on actual construction work, to form a National Advisory Board
on Fuels and Structural Materials.

I appoint you a member of this Board, as representing on it the Isthmian
Canal Commission, with the understanding that, in view of your necessary
absence from the United States, you will designate some associated engineer
now located within easy reach of Washington to represent you during such
absence at the meetings of the Board.

The experts in charge of the testing laboratories for structural materials,
under the advice of this Board, are making an exhaustive investigation of
American cements, concrete, re-enforced concrete, and other structural
materials, and the behavior of these materials under varying conditions of
salt or fresh water, etc. They are also investigating the explosives used in
quarrying and mining operations.

I am anxious that these laboratories should investigate materials and prob-
lems for the construction work of the Isthmian Canal, just as they are now
doing for the public building work of the Government and the engineering
work of the U. S Reclamation Service, and as they are now beginning for
the Engineer Corps of the Army, the Bureau of Yards and Docks of the
Navy Department, etc.

The times and places of meetings of the Board and other details will be
arranged by the Board itself or through the Director of the Geological Sur-
vey and the Chief of the Forest Service. Once each year, during the re-
mainder of the present administration, the Board should report to the Presi-
dent its suggestions and recommendations, and from time to time I should be
glad if each member of the Board will give to the Director of the Geological
Survey or the Chief of the Forest Service, or to those who are directly m
charge of the investigations, such suggestions as will best forward the objects
of this work. At the beginning of each year the plans proposed for investiga-
tions will be submitted in writing to the members of the Board for their
consideration and advice.

I have also asked the Board to consider and devise plans looking to such
a consolidation of this Government testing and investigation work as will
avoid all unnecessary duplication, and if these laboratories can be of service
in the testing of explosives, or of cements, concrete, or other structural ma-
terials needed for the Isthmian Canal work, they are at your disposal for this
purpose.

I inclose a list of those whom I appointed members of the National Ad-
visory Board on Fuels and Structural Materials, and who have accepted. Very
truly yours

687

4335 ' T0 GEORGE VON LENGERKE MEYER

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, June n, 1907

To the Postmaster General: The Interstate Commerce Commission urges,
upon the recommendation of the President of the Northern Pacific Railway
Company, that the Federal Government should set a good example by laying
in an adequate fuel supply for all its offices or branches in the Northwest well
in advance of the next winter, so as to avoid so far as possible the trouble
caused by the shortage of fuel in that region in the winter that has just past.
This is excellent advice. You are directed to have a complete stock of fuel
at all offices controlled by your Department thruout the West prior to the
first of October, next, so that after that date it shall be unnecessary to buy any
coal or wood for Indian schools, army posts, or any other Government uses
thruout the Northwest. 1

4336 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, June 13, 1907

Dearest Kermit: I am as pleased as Punch that you should have stroked such a
fine race. It is great. I would have given much to have seen that final spurt.
Naturally, I am very pleased at what the coaches and the others said to you.
There isn’t anything that will try a man’s sand more than the spurt in a
punishing finish when the crew is behind. Altogether it looks to me as if you
had done mighty well at Groton this year.

We had a very nice time at Jamestown on Georgia Day. Auntie Bye and
Uncle Will, Auntie Corinne and Uncle Douglas, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant La
Farge went down with us. I think it very touching of the Georgians to have
built a reproduction of my grandfather’s house, the house m which my father
and mother were married, as the Georgia State Building. They received me
with wild enthusiasm and for the moment loved me very much indeed —
which will not in the least interfere with their hating me quite as much a year
hence if anything whatever happens in the meantime that they do not like.
There was the usual awful crush when we tried to get lunch. I would not sit
down at all because there were barely enough seats for the ladies in the party,
and I have simply gotten tired of sitting down, because of my awesome posi-
tion as President, and seeing women, who are really tired, standing up. The
naval review was a great sight, of course, and I tell you I feel mighty glad to
think of all these battleships, now that there is this friction with Japan.

Yesterday we came home. The place is too lovely for anything and it is
delightful to be here. Lovely tho the White House is, it is not home; and
Sagamore Hill is. Today Mother and Ethel and I are all as busy as bees

1 Roosevelt sent identical letters to the other Cabinet officers whose departments had
offices in the Northwest.

arranging the books that came on from Washington, and generally fixing
things. Your loving father

4337 • to redfield proctor Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, June 13, 1907

My dear Senator: I have your letter of the nth instant. 1 I did not misread
your former letter. I read it accurately. When I came in I announced at once
that I should continue in office the men who made good public servants. This
has meant that there were but very few appointments for me to make, I have
made fewer original appointments than almost any other President within
the same length of time, because I have continued in office all good men. This
is the reason why I have made so relatively few appointments from any State.
I believe that, taking into account its population, Vermont has fared as well
as any other State.

Of course in saying whether any State is or is not behind in her quota,
the total number of appointments must be considered and not merely the new
appointments. Any other course would be rank injustice. When, as was the
case with Vermont, a State is away ahead in the number of appointments, it
ought not to be necessary to say that the only way the States that are behind
in their quota can be brought up and the inequality against them somewhat
reduced is by appointing more men from those States and not from the
States which are ahead. Vermont is well ahead in her share of the appoint-
ments, taking the total number of Vermonters whom I found in and whom I
have since appointed.

And moreover, my dear Senator, it seems to me that you are making a
plea not for appointments for Vermont but for some appointment that shall
be, to use your phraseology, “charged as a favor to” the Senators from Ver-
mont. For instance, you state that Robb’s appointment is not to be “charged
as a favor” to you and your colleague, because you recommended someone
else. Nevertheless, he is a Vermont man and while I haven’t the slightest in-
tention of charging him as a “favor” to you or to anyone else, or as a “favor”
to the State for that matter, it still remains true that he was appointed from
Vermont. My prime purpose is to get good men. There is a real reason for
paying heed to geographical considerations so far as it can be done compati-
bly with getting a first-class man; and subject to the first consideration, I
naturally feel pleased whenever I have the chance to show “favor” to a Sena-
tor or a Congressman. But it is not possible to show such favor to any indi-
vidual at the expense of so good a mati as Robb, 2 and when I appoint a man

1 Proctor and Roosevelt were exchanging long letters at a rapid rate about the
senator’s request that a Vermont man should be assigned to fill the vacancy m the
United States Court for the Second Circuit. Walter C. Noyes of Connecticut was
appointed

2 Charles H Robb had been appointed Associate Justice of the District of Columbia
Court of Appeals in 1906.

689

like Robb, who was appointed because he was the best man for the position,
I will frankly say that I care very little whether he is credited to Vermont,
New York, or any other State. There were candidates from New York for
Robb’s position; but I paid no heed to them because I felt that Robb was
the man for it and that New Yorkers, like other citizens, were much more
benefited by having the best man put in this responsible position than by
seeing it given to someone from their own State who would be a good man
but not the best man.

You of course do not realize that the great majority of Senators continu-
ally make to me the very same complaint that you do, that is, each of them
complains that his State has not received its proper share of appointments.
The New York Senators, for instance, complain that I have given New York
much less than McKinley gave her. The two Delaware Senators have made
exactly the same complaint about Delaware that you have made about Ver-
mont, and so on and so on.

In the consular appointments the State Department reports to me that
Vermont has nearly five times the share to which she is entitled by her popu-
lation I mention this simply as showing that in appointments abroad it was
not possible to make new ones from Vermont because I am trying to preserve
some rough equality among the different States, and am always, therefore,
trying to get up the quotas of those that are farthest behind. This means that
the apportionment of my appointments, so far as justice or injustice to Ver-
mont is concerned, must be made among the men whom I have appointed at
Washington and to a very few outside positions. The total number of these
appointments is not great, and you will find that Darling, 3 Stafford 4 and Robb
— all three my appointments — probably represent over the strict share to
which Vermont would be entitled on a basis of exact division of population
As for this particular judgeship, I feel like interpleading my two good
friends, the Senators from Vermont, with my two good friends, the Senators
from Connecticut, and letting them have a joint debate f Sincerely yours

4338 * TO JAMES ALEXANDER HEMENWAY Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, June 17, 1907

My dear Senator : 1 1 have been thinking over what you said to me about the
desirability of making decent colored men understand that the inevitable
decision that some of the colored troops did the shooting at Brownsville is

3 Charles H Darling, after leaving the Navy Department m 1905, had been appointed
collector of customs for the District of Vermont

4 WendelI P Stafford, since 1904 an Associate Justice of the District of Columbia
Supreme Court.

1 Hemenway was a member of the committee investigating the Brownsville affair
The committee had adjourned on June 15 until November 18, at which time it was
to begin the final work on its report. It was already clear, however, that at least a
large minority of the committee did not share Roosevelt’s views on the guilt of the
Negro companies and the punishment they had received.

690

not an assault on the colored race. Of course I am as anxious as you are to
make this evident, and I think it is even more important from the standpoint
of the colored man than from the standpoint of the white man to establish the
fact that in crimes generally there must under no circumstances be meted
punishment, or favoritism shown, the criminal, because of his color, and there
must not be anything like race solidarity permitted in either punishing or
shielding him. The individual, not the race, must be held responsible for the
crime, and this must be recognized alike by the race to which the crimmal
belongs and the race to which the victim belongs.

Now I am a little puzzled how to achieve the end we both have in view.
You suggested that it might be possible, while declaring emphatically that
the shooting was done by some of the negro soldiers, to clear others of them
and restore them to the army. I have gone over the testimony as well as I
could and as yet I cannot see quite how this could be done. Have you thought
out a method by which we could do this and yet avoid injustice^ The testi-
mony seems perfectly clear as to the guilt of two of the companies. Do you
think it is possible to show any presumption of innocence for the thirds I
have been inclined to doubt this, but I want to hear your judgment, of course,
if this judgment is the other way.

We have been thinking of enlisting a battalion of negroes in the new
heavy artilleiy contingent, but I have taken no steps in this direction because
we felt it would be unwise to do so pending the report of the Senate Com-
mittee, as it might look as if in some way we were trying to influence the
report. Would there be any way of using the formation of this colored com-
pany immediately after your report ? I have not formulated any plan, but
I had a vague thought that perhaps it would be possible to act on the recom-
mendation of the members of the Committee who signed that report in ac-
cordance with the facts — for now that the evidence is in I suppose there is
no harm in saying that any statement that the shooting was not done by some
of the negro troops is incompatible with the man stating it being both honest
and intelligent. Do you think this plan is feasible^ 3

You understand, my dear Senator, that I am writing you only because you
brought the matter up m our conversation the other day, and because I so
entirely agree with you that if we can make it evident that our holding the
criminals to account is not m any way an assault upon the colored people as
such, we ought to do so. Sincerely yours

4339 • to henry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, June 17, 1907

Dear Cabot: I shall look over that testimony as soon as it reaches me.

I do not know what to say about your conversation with Guild. 1 Did

1 The conversation was about the New Haven merger, the subject of Lodge’s letters
to Roosevelt of June 14 and 20, 1907, see Lodge, II, 269-272

69 I

you tell him that my action was taken at your suggestion, and for the espe-
cial purpose of showing that the administration was m sympathy with the
attitude of the State, at least to the extent of watching sharply the merger
matter so that in case there' is any infraction of the federal law we may act
forthwith? I think that if you made this statement, pointing out that the
action had been taken at your request, and* that so far from indicating any
hostility to the action of the State Government, it was with a view of seeing
whether there was any infraction of the federal law. It seems to me that that
is all that would be necessary.

Give my love to Nannie. Ever yours

4340 * TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, June 20, 1907

My dear Mr. Attorney General: I have written to the Department of Com-
merce and Labor to make that census 1 at once, so please see the Comptroller
of the Treasury and talk to him as soon as possible.

What you tell me about the proposal of Purdy and McReynolds is very
important. 2 I must trust to your judgment and therefore I hardly think it is
worth while for me to see the proposed bill when it is printed. How would
it do for you to speak to Root and ask him if he would care to see it> I do
not suppose he will, and I do not suppose there is much harm in your asking
As for the novel feature of the bill, it seems to me to be a very good thing.
But, as you say, it is a little startling as a matter of law, and I can only
acquiesce m your suggestion that you examine it most carefully before you
go into it. We do not want to do anything that we cannot make good, and
yet we do very emphatically want to take proceedings which will really
effectively put a stop to actions by the big corporations in contravention of
law. Of course I would prefer to put the real offenders in stripes, as you pro-

1 In Oklahoma

2 Milton D, Purdy and James C McReynolds, then a special assistant to the Attorney
General, had proposed the appointment of receivers to supervise the dissolution of
corporations found guilty of violating the Sherman Act Bonaparte in August per-
suaded Roosevelt not to recommend legislation to permit this novel remedy. In
July, however, McReynolds and Henry Stimson, filing the government’s petition
against the American Tobacco Company, had requested that “receivers be appointed
to take possession of all the property, assets, business and affairs of said defendants,
and wind up the same, and otherwise take such course in regard thereto as will
bring about conditions m trade and commerce among the States and with foreign
nations in harmony with law.” This proposal was made as an alternative suggestion
“if the court should be of the opinion that the public interest will be better subserved
thereby.” The court was not of that opimon, but the continuing inefficacy of
traditional methods /or dissolving combinations found illegal under the Sherman
Act has persuaded many antitrust authorities of 1951 of the merit of the receiver-
ship plan.

692

pose to try to do with Duke, 3 but next to this in effectiveness would be the
seizure of their business and the selling off of those establishments which have
been acquired in contravention of law. Offhand, therefore, I am inclined to
think that the suggestion of Purdy and McReynolds is a very good one.
Sincerely yours

[■ Handwritten ] I have seen Cooley; and I am satisfied with his reports and
the action he recommends, 4 if, as I gather this meets your approval.

434I • TO KENNETH GRAHAME Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, June 20, 1907

My dear Mr. Grahame : 1 1 am sure that no one to whom you could have sent
those two volumes would appreciate them more than Mrs. Roosevelt and I.
I think we could both pass competitive examinations in them — especially in
the psychology of Harold 1

Now there are two people from Scotland whom we especially wish to see
as guests in the White House while we are still there to be hosts. One is
Oliver, who wrote the best life of Alexander Hamilton that has ever been
written, and the other is yourself. Isn’t there some chance of your coming
over here 11

With renewed thanks, believe me, Sincerely yours

4342 • TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, June 21, 1907

Dear President Wheeler. I have your letter of the 20th and the accompanying
clipping, I shall take up the subjects you mention in their inverse order
It is not of importance whether the fleet is m the Pacific or Atlantic, but
it is important that it shall be kept steadily increasing in size and that it shall
all be kept in one place, so far as the fighting ships are concerned, if there is
the least chance of a breaking out of hostilities. If Congress will keep on
building up the fleet I think I can guarantee you against a bombardment; but
if I had not been able to overcome the opposition of Senators Hale, Tillman,
and the rest of them during the past six years, and if they had stopt the
upbuilding of the fleet (and it had been stopt when I became President) you
would have been m danger of bombardment now.

8 Bonaparte contemplated prosecuting James B. Duke in a criminal action after the
completion of the civil action against the tobacco trust.

4 Cooley and District Attorney French of Massachusetts had advised against any
antitrust prosecution of the New Haven Railroad at that time. Massachusetts was
already pressing the suit by which the railroad was ultimately forced to dispose of
its street railway holdings.

1 Kenneth Grahame, an author with a mystic charm, at whose bidding many
children have passed through golden days and heard the wind in the willows.

I am exceedingly pleased that you kept on the Pacific Slope. There is
where you can do your best work. You did a patriotic service.

I have not known anything about that plan for industrial peace in San
Francisco, but of course I will back it up in every way I properly can.

I have written to Bacon to procure full information about Garrett, and
will let you know when I hear from him.

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4343 • TO FREDERICK JORDAN RANLETT Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, June 24, 1907

Dear Ranlett : 1 Your article on my “College Rank and Studies” interested me
very much; as a matter of fact, it is the first time I have known my rank, and
I had forgotten about many of my studies. I wish I could have the chance
of seeing you in Washington sometime, as I would like to talk over several
things suggested by your article. You are quite right as to the effect that
Shaler produced upon me. 2 3 * I think you are right about my compositions too.
I have more difficulty to hold myself in than to make myself elaborate. But
with my theses and forensics in college the fundamental trouble was that I
was not interested in the subjects. To this day I am continually asked to write
or speak on subjects of great importance in which I happen not to be inter-
ested and m that case I simply cannot speak or write. At the end of my
senior year, for instance, I had begun to write my history of the Naval War
of 1812. I could probably have written a good thesis on that; and I know I
could have written a fair thesis on natural history; but I am by no means
certain that it was one which my instructors would have approved. In college
I had determined to become a naturalist, but I was perfectly clear that I
was to be an out-of-doors fauna naturalist, and this my college professors
united in declaring was an impossibility and that the only really scientific
man with a career worth having was the scientific man who limited himself
to work in the study with the microscope. After a while I accepted this
statement as probably true (in which I was in error) and at once made up
my mind that I should try some other career. So with my political economy.
I believe it did me good, but almost as soon as I left college I got into active
politics and there I found that the “economic man” of most textbooks simply
did not exist, and that many of the textbooks which in college had been

1 Frederick Jordan Ranlett, a classmate of Roosevelt, in 1907 a Boston lawyer, had pub-
lished m the June 1907 Harvard Graduates 5 Magazine an article, “Theodore Roose-
velt’s College Rank and Studies.” “Perhaps his college course,” Ranlett concluded,
“as a whole, taught him how to study, how to observe, how to reason, if so, Alma

Mater could have given him no better preparation for the school of life.”

3 “Is it a mere conceit,” Ranlett wrote, “to think that from the sturdy nature of

Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, keen observer, good fighter, good friend, hater of shams,

some strong and vital emanation of spirit may have passed into the character of
Theodore Roosevelt?”

694

held up to me as susceptible of immediate application to the practical facts
of life were of no, use when thus applied — exactly as neither Plato’s Republic
nor More’s Utopia is of practical value as regards specific acts of legislation
whether at Albany or Washington. Of course all these books have a very real
value of a different kind.

But I do not mean to bore you with any more reminiscences. If you get
to the neighborhood of Washington do give me the chance to have you to
dinner and let us talk over old times. Faithfully yours

4344 ■ to Alexander scott Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, June 26, 1907

My dear Mr. Scott : 1 1 have your letter of the 24th instant. Your invitation is
one which I feel I ought to decline, literally because the honor is too great for
me. So far as I remember this is the only time I, as President, have ever made
such an answer, or felt that I should make such an answer, but I feel that the
Medal of Honor is the greatest distinction open to any American. I should be
more proud than I can say to have earned it myself. As a matter of fact I was
recommended for it by my superior officers in the Santiago campaign, but
I was not awarded it, and frankly, looking back at it now, I feel that the
board which declined to award it took exactly the right position. Now, under
these circumstances, it seems to me that if I accepted even honorary member-
ship in your club, my act would be liable to misconstruction in a way that
would hurt both you and me.

Anything I can properly do to help your organization I want to do, and
you can count upon me at any time. Sincerely y ours

4345 • TO NICHOLAS LONGWORTH Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, June 26, 1907

Dear Nick: I hope you and Alice will have a lovely trip.

I am glad to hear what you say about Taft. That scoundrel, Foraker, is
doing all the damage he can with the negroes. In my judgment, when the re-
port of the committee comes in the Democrats of the committee will take
such an extreme position as to make the colored men who have even the
slightest shred of common sense realize where their real friends are. A
blacker wrong to the colored race than Foraker and his friends have commit-
ted it would not be possible to imagine.

All right, I will see Jackson Smith, altho I cannot imagine why he did
not tell me what he wanted to do while he was in Washington.

1 Alexander Scott, president, United States Medal of Honor Club.

695

I will see the Fleischmanns. 1 Will you write to Julius Fleischmann that
I would like to have him and his brother lunch with me August 12th at one
o’clock, and let me know if they accept^

Much love to Alice. Ever yours

434 6 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, June 27, 1907

Dear Cabot: I have your letter of the 25th. Taft, thank Heaven, is up to the
point of making an aggressive fight against Foraker, and anything you think
he ought to say on the subject of Brownsville you can confidentially send
him. I have half a mind, when I speak at Canton next October, to touch on
the Brownsville case myself. I shall talk it over with you when I see you.

Tell Nannie that she would have been amused the night before last if she
had seen Ethel and myself. Edith had gone off to New London to meet the
boys, and Ethel and I were left here alone. It was a beautiful moonlight
night, and as always happens on moonlight nights the colored servants — *
that is, the coachman, groom, and the two housemen — aided by the two
white grooms, started to sing. The coachman and colored groom really have
excellent voices, and the other four sing well in the choruses (curiously
enough, altho all four are Virginians, we have no trouble along the color
line) and it is really pleasant to hear them. So Ethel and I, as it was a hot
night, sat solemnly m scanty attire on the piazza, having gotten up from bed
to come down and listen to them.

Young Trevelyan has sent me his book on Garibaldi. Reading the chapter
on Papal rule reminded me of our talk about Karl Pearson’s book about
Luther, 1 which evidently somewhat deceived John. 2 Of course it is one of the
commonest and cheapest of all forms of intellectual entertainment to hold
up to ridicule and reprobation a man who in the past has done a very great
work, because he does not come up to the ideas which are indispensable for
the present. It is utterly foolish to either idolize or idealize Luther; but it is
very much worse than foolish to fail to realize the enormous good that he
did. Ask John to study the condition of the Papal States under the temporal
rule of the Pope for the thirty-odd years succeeding Waterloo, and he will
get a good idea of what Luther helped to save us from. Ever yours

1 Julius and Max C. Fleischmann, wealthy Cincinnati Republicans. Max directed
corporations, joined clubs, hunted big game in the Arctic and tropics. Julius, less
versatile, had been the Cox machine’s 'boy mayor” of Cincinnati, 1901-1905. Both
were now working for Taft.

1 “Martin Luther* His Influence on the Material and Intellectual Welfare of Ger-
many,” an essay published in The Ethic of Freethought (1888), by Karl Pearson, for
long Galton Professor of Eugenics and director of the Francis Galton Laboratory
for National Eugenics, University of London. A versatile, talented, bad-tempered
biometrician, he became increasingly interested in problems of measurement and
statistics. In 1892 he published his great work, The Grammar of Science.

2 John Ellerton Lodge, younger son of Henry Cabot Lodge.

4347 * T0 ALLEN WILLIAM THURMAN

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, June 29, 1907

My dear Mr . Thurman: 1 1 thank you for your letter of the 21st instant. Your
action showed not only remarkable power of memory but real thoughtful-
ness and kindness. I had not seen Harvey’s parallel between Andrew Jackson
and myself, 2 but if he thinks he can hurt my feelings by comparing me with
Old Hickory he is very much mistaken indeed.

I return you the clippings of your father’s speech. It is admirable, and I
greatly enjoyed reading it. If it is not too much trouble and you can have
the speech by Governor Allen copied, I should like to see that also.

With great regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4348 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 1, 1907

Dear Will: I have your several letters. I shall at once write Hitchcock to
come on here and see me. 1 Loeb, who is taking this dictation, has long felt
a suspicion that something of the kind was being done. But here I have been
inclined to differ from both Loeb and you. For instance, if you look in
today’s Sun you will see an attack on Hitchcock which says that the Fair-
banks and Foraker people are wild about his proposed trip in the West
because they regard him as doing campaign work for you. I will see him and
have a perfectly frank talk with him, and without quoting you I will quote
your letter as if it was from someone else.

As regards the Quartermaster General, I shall take the man you recom-
mend, and shall accordingly appoint Aleshire. I shall send your letters in
reference to the Quartermaster General to Root. Ever yours

P.S. Until Loeb reminded me that I had not spoken about the canal in
answer to your question, I was going to pass it by, simply because I did not
believe even you could imagine the utter indifference with which I regard
these attacks upon the canal management 1 I pay about as much heed to them
as I do to attacks upon you. That there will be blunders and troubles down
there goes without saying, but that there is anything seriously wrong I do
not believe, and the only thing to do now is to back Goethals and his col-
leagues right up to the handle. If Jackson Smith is not giving them the most

1 Allen William Thurman, Ohio Democrat, chairman of the Chicago silver conven-
tion of 1893, an author of Bryan’s platform m 1896, m 1907 a leading advocate of
municipal and ballot reform

2 George B M. Harvey, “Jackson and Roosevelt A Parallel,” North American
Review, 184 742-754 (April 1907).

1 Taft was needlessly worried about the political activities of Assistant Postmaster
General Frank H Hitchcock. A loyal Taft man, Hitchcock later demonstrated his
efficient fidelity as chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1908-1909, and

Postmaster General, 1909-1913.

697

cordial and unqualified support, his head shall spin in the gutter. A prohibi-
tionist ranter of the usual variety, half scoundrel and all idiot, has been howl-
ing about conditions down there, but I think his howls have died away
without echo.

You wired me that you were going to write me about Beach, 2 but I have
not seen anything from you as yet.

4349 • to cecil Arthur spring rice Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, July i, 1907

Dear Cecil: Your letter to Edith was interesting in every way. You say it was
indiscreet. All right — I shall agree that it was indiscreet by assenting to
everything therein contained.

1 am glad that you thought well of Pearson. He has had such difficulties
with the missionaries that I have arranged a swap between him and Jackson. 1
Jackson has done well m Greece, but I grew a little suspicious of him because
of his strong pro-Russia feeling dunng the Russian-Japanese war. It was not
necessary to be in any way blind about the Japanese in order to see what a
hideous thing it was for Russia to triumph under such leadership as she then
had — a hideous thing for all the world and a hideous thing for the Russian
people. I genuinely like the Russian people. I think they have fine traits, and
I have felt very sadly to see them seemingly oscillate between autocratic
despotism in its most revolting form, and a wild and murderous anarchy in
its most revolting form. When the friends of order and the friends of liberty
arrange themselves respectively under the banners of two such systems, the
outlook is gloomy.

More than almost anything else in your letter I was interested in what
you said as to the growth in Persia among the Mohammedans of a belief m
toleration. This seems to me to mark the possibility of an evolution which
will make Mohammedanism a working creed for modem civilization, just
as Buddhism could undoubtedly be made, and just as Shintoism could be
made. At present it is impossible to expect moral, intellectual and material
well-being where Mohammedanism is supreme. Are not the Shiites more
accessible to such a movement than the Sunnites^ 5

With us here things go on much as usual, from fight to fight, from
trouble to trouble, m foreign affairs and domestic affairs. On the whole I
think I may truthfully say that since I have been President I have made real

2 John Kimberly Beach, a former president of the New Haven Bar Association, m
1907 aspired to the United States Circuit Court vacancy to which Noyes was ap-
pointed. Beach was later a professor at the Yale Law School and an Associate Justice
of the Connecticut Supreme Court

x John B. Jackson was made minister to Persia, replacing Richmond Pearson, who
relieved Jackson in Greece.

698

progress toward the accomplishing of certain things which I have long
thought desirable for the country. But of course there are many disheartening
and exasperating checks. The San Francisco mob bids fair, if not to embroil
us with Japan, at any rate to arouse in Japan a feeling of rankling anger
toward us that may at any time bear evil result; and the Japanese Jingoes are
in their turn about as bad as ours I am doing everything I can to meet the
just grievances of the Japanese, to atone for and remedy any wrong. But I am
also doing everything I can to keep the navy at the highest point of efficiency!

I am glad you liked my letter to Carnegie’s peace conference. With the
sole exception of temperance, I think that more nonsense is talked about
peace than about any other really good cause with which I am acquainted.
Everybody ought to believe in peace and everybody ought to believe in
temperance; but the professional advocates of both tend toward a peculiarly
annoying form of egotistic lunacy. If the Carnegie crowd would turn their
attention to making the whole country feel awake to the wrong attitude of
San Francisco about the Japanese, they could accomplish something that
would be of benefit, whereas the net product of their New York convention
was wind, and they have really seriously hampered us in getting any good
results at The Hague

Here at home I am engaged in the pleasing task of trying to prevent the
plutocracy on the one hand and the anarchistic labor group on the other from
traveling exactly the same paths that m Russia have made the autocracy and
the wild-eyed radicals almost equally impossible, almost equally dangerous to
the future of the country. It is hard to say just how far I have been successful.

Give our warm regards to your wife. Of course you know that we did
everything we could to have you sent here as Ambassador. Bryce is doing
well, but you would do even better, and naturally I would give anything if
you could be here. Is there the slightest chance of your stopping in Wash-
ington with the Madam and spending a little while at the White House with
us during the next eighteen months? Ever yours

4350 * to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 2, 1907

Dear Elihu: I had expected to appoint Duvall. When we last saw Taft he
agreed with you that he would be the best man; but he wrote me yesterday
very strongly, stating that he was for Aleshire, that he regarded him as a
more solid man than Duvall and the one to whom it was safer to tie, and
that he did not like Duvall’s crowd, that he knew Aleshire down to the
ground, and to use his own words, “in the pinch I incline towards steadiness
of character.” He felt very strongly about it, and I made the appointment
accordingly.

* I see that a new San Francisco fool has cropped up to add to our difficul-

699

ties with the Japanese. 1 What will be the outcome, I do not know. I have
called upon Bonaparte to investigate the matter.

I am receiving various howls over the German agreement, coming from
people who are Vitally interested in our protective tariff and in business
stability, and who therefore clamor for us to follow a course which would
cause ruin to the protective tariff, and which would probably bring about
a revision next winter, with attendant widespread disaster to the commercial
community. 2

I have not followed things at The Hague. 3 I felt that Carnegie’s peace
conference at New York was a real detriment to our accomplishing anything
at The Hague, and ever since I found out that the English Government
would not consent to a reduction in the size of ships and would insist, quite
properly, upon maintaining its own great naval superiority, I felt that its
attitude in favor of a limitation of armaments as regards other nations would
be treated as merely hypocritical and would cause damage and not good.

Is there anything for me to do in this Hague matter^ Ever yours

4351 • TO THE EDITORS OF THE Outlook Roosevelt MSS.

Personal and Private Oyster Bay, July 3, 1907

To the Editors of The Outlook : This is a private and personal letter. If I
knew which particular one of my friends among the editors of The Outlook
had had his mind all turned askew by prolonged and excessive indulgence in
the writings of Mr. Long, I should address him personally. 1 As it is I address
you collectively.

Now, first of all, I hope I do not have to say how fond I am of The Out -

a The San Francisco Board of Police Commissioners had refused to license six
Japanese to conduct employment bureaus. After the federal government gently
interceded, this decision was revoked in December 1907, see Bailey, Roosevelt and
the Japanese- American Crises , pp. 205-206.

2 The standpatters, guarding the principle of protection from the dangers of
reciprocity, objected to a new German-American tariff agreement, negotiated to
ensure for the Umted States Germany’s minimum schedules. The American conces-
sions to Germany were similar to those in the agreement of 1906 which had
expired after the Senate rejected the amendments to the Customs Administrative Act
on which the agreement depended

“Indifferent to the proceedings of the Second Hague Conference, then in session,
Roosevelt was uninformed about both the instructions to the American delegation
and the conventions ultimately adopted by the conference. Root’s work, which in-
cluded the writing of the section on the conference in Roosevelt’s annual message
of 1907, is described in Jessup, Root, II, 68 ff., for full details concerning the instruc-
tions to the American delegation, the report of the delegation, and the conventions
adopted, see Foreign Relations, 1907, pp. ii28ff.

1 The Outlook on June 29 had printed an attack on W. J. Long by John Burroughs
It had followed this attack, apparently in a genial desire for fair play, by a defense

of the work of Mr Long. Chastened by tins extended expression of Presidential
wrath, the magazine on July 13 carried an article, also by Burroughs, conferring

elaborate praise upon Theodore Roosevelt.

700

look and how much I believe in it. It is of the greatest consequence to me
that there should be a thoroly high-grade paper representing the best and
most serious thought of the best people (as I firmly believe The Outlook
does) to which I can freely give full information from the inside on such
matters as the Brownsville incident, as the maltreatment of the Japanese in
San Francisco, as to the inside history of rate legislation, and so forth and
so forth. These are the most important things, and I suppose that it is im-
possible that even the best people should not have some wild vagary to their
credit, and that I ought to be grateful that the Outlook merely takes the
nature fakers as its pet indulgence in this direction. But the very fact that I
am usually in such complete sympathy with you makes me write you in
view of your second series of allusions to what you call a “controversy”
between myself and Mr. Long. I have been informed that The Evening Post
has taken the same position; but I do not care a rap about the Evening Post.
I thoroly distrust the veracity and moral integrity of both Oswald Villard
and Rollo Ogden, and I do not believe their attitude in this matter or in most
matters is honest. It is entirely different with you; altho you must pardon my
saying that, having made this assertion as to my confidence in you morally,
it becomes a little difficult for me to write in a way that will not seem offen-
sive as regards your capacity to understand even the rudimentary facts of
wildlife. One puzzling feature of this controversy is that, so far as I know,
every competent observer regards Mr. Long with utter contempt as a cheap
impostor; his books are to all such competent observers on their face ridicu-
lous; and acceptance of what Mr. Long says is not compatible with any
knowledge whatever of the subject. This is the literal fact; and when one is
writing to people for whom one has a real regard, it is hard to state such a
fact without seeming to be rude.

I believe that one permanent branch of literature is and ought to be that
dealing with outdoor observations on beasts and birds, great and small on
the farm and in the wilderness. I feel that White of Selbome, Thoreau, John
Burroughs, not to speak of other men like John Muir, have a real place in
literature, just as much as those who write of anthropology and archaeology,
just as much as those who write of history. Therefore I feel that a cheap
impostor, a cheap inventor of impossible and ridiculous falsehoods, should be
emphatically frowned upon, in one branch of work just as much as in an-
other. Many years ago I was fascinated by the writings of Edmund Kirke on
the early history of the Southern Appalachian country. He wrote charm-
ingly, and he described a number of things that were altogether new. I
hailed his advent with delight; but upon investigation I found that all that
he described as new was pure invention. Now this has been precisely my
experience with Mr. Long and some of his colleagues. Mr. Long is not an
observer at all. I do not believe for one moment that he has ever seen a wild
wolf or a wild lynx. His books show that he certainly knows nothing about
their nature; or habits. He does not record observations, but exceedingly

clumsy* fabrications. He stands on an exact par with the fabricators of the
Cardiff giant. Excellent people were convinced that the Cardiff giant was a
petrified prehistoric man. These excellent people were not a whit more
foolish than those who accept as true Mr. Long’s statements about the wolf,
the fisher, the caribou, and wild creatures generally. Good, ignorant persons
gave solemn affidavits and certificates about the Cardiff giant, and similar
persons — and various sharp knaves — give similar certificates to Mr. Long
now. They are exactly as valuable in one case as in the other.

You say you take issue with me on three grounds. As to the first, I am
inclined to agree with you, at least to the extent of admitting that this ex-
perience shows how unwise it is to believe that many good people can have
their eyes opened to even the most palpable and self-evident bit of imposition
and how apt they are to take sides with the cheapest and most ignorant im-
postor, if that impostor has sufficient impudence and sufficient readiness of
tongue; so that, m view of what Professor Lounsbury calls “the infinite
capacity of the human brain to withstand the introduction of knowledge”, it
does not pay for a President to attack even the grossest fraud unless he can-
not help himself. In this case, being a man greatly interested in outdoor life,
who takes nature studies seriously, and who has the hearty abhorrence of a
sheer impostor which every reputable outdoor observer must have, I exposed
Mr. Long. I was not thinking of him personally at all, any more than I am
thinking of the other “fakers,” morally not a whit worse, against whom we
have to issue post-office fraud orders; (and Mr. Long’s writings are just as pal-
pably fraudulent devices to obtain money as are the advertisements and the
like against which we issue these fraud orders) . My concern is not with Mr.
Long personally. He writes interestingly, but otherwise he stands on a pre-
cise level with the hundreds of writers who invent fantastic stories about
natural history and hunting for the Sunday issues of certain newspapers. His
importance comes because he, unlike his less fortunate and less noxious fel-
lows, has been accepted seriously by people who, you must pardon my say-
ing, have absolutely no excuse for so accepting him.

You say you think his books have done good to children. I do not believe
that lying does permanent good to anyone, child or man. I have read one or
two of Mr. Long’s stories to my own children; but I carefully explained to
them that the stories were fables, fairy tales. As such they are all right; but it
is wicked, as well as in the highest degree foolish, to treat them as truth; and
no good can ultimately come to any child from such treatment.

Now for your second point. You say that I have fallen into the error of a
palpably unscientific statement when I say that it is a “mechanical” (I did
not say “mathematical”) impossibility for a wolf to bite into the heart of a
caribou as Mr. Long describes. You say that this kind of assertion is not
made by the most careful scientists. As a matter of fact I made this assertion
because our best and most careful and scientific mammalogist, Dr. Hart
Merriam, happened to use this very form of words in speaking to me of this

702

very incident. He used the words, and I used the words, because they exprest
with scientific accuracy the fact. If some correspondent of years, in describ-
ing his tennis m the Philippines, stated that in one day he won 127 sets, and
supported the assertion by the affidavits of two converted Filipinos and one
Chinese mestizo, I should not believe the statement, but I should not regard
it as a wte chemical impossibility. But if he said that he sprang 68 feet from the
ground I would say that the fact was a mechanical impossibility. Precisely
the same statement must be made if accurate and scien tifi c language is to be
used about Mr. Long’s ridiculous assertion; and about many more of his
ridiculous assertions. You need not have the slightest difficulty about this. Go
up to the Bronx Zoo. See Mr. Homaday, the Director, and get him to show
you a wolf; look at the gape of its jaws and the length of its teeth; and then
look at the first horse you come to or at a stuffed or caged caribou or moose.
You will see at once that it is mechanically impossible for the wolf to perform
the feat ascribed to him. Any affidavit in support of such a story is interesting
purely as casting light on the character of the maker of the affidavit. No
wolf or any other carnivore can perform such a feat as Mr. Long declares the
wolf performed upon the caribou. Mr. Long does not know anything about
wolves, or he would know that they kill by seizing the throat, the flanks, or
the hams. It is not necessary to be an observer of nature to be able to see the
ludicrous falsity of this statement of Mr. Long’s. All that is necessary is to
possess ordinary common sense.

Mr Long describes a fisher killing a big buck by a bite in the jugular.
Here again he describes a mechanical impossibility, altho the absurdity is
hardly so gross as that of the fisher’s mental processes as he describes them.
What would you think of a small boy who told you that a fox he was hunt-
ing, by a bite in the jugular killed a large calf, expecting thereby by the bribe
of the carcass to distract the attention of the hunter 13 You would spank the
small boy and send him to bed, because hundreds of hunters hunt foxes, and
so we know what is impossible m stories about them. This story of the fisher
is a preposterous absurdity; I am utterly unable to understand how you can
fail to see that such a story shows a depraved indifference to every considera-
tion of truth and honest statement on the part of Mr. Long

You say that in this controversy is involved “a question of psychology
as well as of fact,” and that both Mr Burroughs and myself support the
theory of instinct as against Mr Long’s theory of reason and intelligence m
the animals. You are completely in error, the only question of psychology in-
volved is the psychology of a clever, reckless, and deliberately untruthful
man As a matter of fact, John Burroughs and I do not agree on the point you
mention. I have not attacked 'Mr. Long’s “theory of reason and intelligence.”
It is not worth while to attack a man’s theories when he has invented all the
facts on which he bases them. I have confined myself to attacking his plain
and simple inventions and falsifications. The only issue involved is that of Mr.
Long’s mendacity. He does not merely distort facts; he invents them. He is

7°3

an. impostor, pure and simple. Not a single statement he makes can be ac-
cepted on his responsibility as true. If your special nature editor will come
out here, I will send to the library and get two or three of Mr. Long’s books,
and I will go over them with your editor page by page, and show him that
they are literally crammed with the most absurd falsehoods — so absurd, that
I cannot see how there is the slightest justification for any reasoning man who
will take the trouble to read these articles failing to see their absurdity. There
is no question of outside proof, or of affidavits; the books condemn them-
selves. There are plenty of competent naturalists around New York; Mr.
Homaday, Mr. Frank Chapman, Mr. Ernest Ingersoll. Why do you not con-
sult them? I know The Outlook does not share the cynical indifference to
truth which makes some newspapers careless in such a matter as this; it per-
forms a great function as a guide and teacher; and yet in this case it has cast
its influence on the side of a peculiarly brazen and impudent species of fraud.
In thus doing it seems to me that The Outlook is (of course entirely unin-
tentionally) false to every principle of real morality. Sincerely yours

4352 • to paul dana Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, July 4, 1907

My dear Dana: I have your letter of the 3d. Indeed I am well aware of your
great services in 1896. The Sun's position then was unique in the character of
service which it was able to render.

But as to this postmastership of New York, it simply is not possible for me
to say at present what I shall be able to do. There seems to be a general and
very strong feeling in favor of the promotion of Morgan. 1 The only objection
made is his possible hostility to Parsons, and of course, with the view I have
of the great service that Parsons is rendering to the cause of public decency,
I cannot have any high Federal official under me whose appointment would
mean the effort to thwart Parsons’ efforts. But you will of course remember
that even if I do not appoint Morgan, I could not commit myself to anyone. I
have to consider not only the services to the public of the candidate in the
past, but his especial fitness from every standpoint at the present time. I hope
that it is unnecessary for me to say how genuinely pleased I would be if I
were able to make a more favorable answer. Sincerely yours

4353 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, July 4, 1907

Dear Will: I agree with you that $4000 should be devoted to General Roloff’s
family. I return Magoon’s letter.

1 Edward M. Morgan, since 1897 assistant postmaster in New York City, was pro-
moted m 1907 to succeed William R. Willcox as postmaster. Willcox had resigned
to become chairman for the New York City committee of the new state public utili-
ties commission.

7°4

I think Reber’s report states exactly the facts. 1

I sent you Lodge’s note asking you to make no reference to the Browns-
ville incident. I am inclined to disagree with Lodge. Foraker has attacked you,
and it is to my mind not only proper but advisable that he should be met just
as sharply as we know how. It is not just that we should be required to sit
still under such attacks, and of course no question of courtesy to the Senate
is involved in answering the attack of a Senator. In fact, I think it would be
rather a weakness for us to fail to answer when the opportunity came.

If you do not object I shall ask Aleshire to call upon Root. Root made a
particular study of the Quartermaster General’s department, and has very
strong convictions about the utter worthlessness and inefficiency of the
present management of that department, and he feels that Aleshire will try
to perpetuate the present management, which it is vital to have completely
reversed.

I trust you will have a delightful rest. Ever yours

4354 * to henry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, July 4, 1907

Dear Cabot: Tell Lord I am very sorry; that I should greatly like to see
Plymouth, but it is out of the question. 1

I entirely agree with you about the inspectors who are to enforce the new
naturalization laws. It is just the kind of service that the civil service rules can-
not provide for in a practical fashion.

I shall give Edith no such message as that you send.

Do get me the Hamilton journal if you can.

I did not know about your being attacked in the Sun , and suppose it is on
account of your stopping the merger. 2 I am not in the least surprised at Lee-
Higginson taking a dark view of you. The other day in talking to a reasonably

1 Major Samuel Reber of the General Staff had been sent to Japan to observe condi-
tions there. He found no evidence of hostility toward Americans His report, re-
freshingly clear and objective m a time of war scare, concluded* “The Japanese are
making no immediate preparation for war with the United States, and I do not
believe that anything is farther from their thoughts at the present time The whole
future of the empire depends upon the success of its commercial expansion and
hostilities with the United States -would absolutely stop this.” — Bailey, Roosevelt
and the Japanese- American Crises , p. 232

There is an excellent analysis of the war scare of 1907 in Bailey, ch xi, a scholarly
account based on a thorough investigation of journalistic and manuscript sources,
including the Roosevelt papers.

1 Roosevelt had been invited to stop at Plymouth on his way to or from Province-
town where, on August 20, he was to deliver an address at the laying of the corner-
stone of the Pilgrim Memorial Monument.

®The Great and General Court of Massachusetts had passed a law requiring the
New York, New Haven and Hartford to sell its Boston and Maine stock by July 1,
1908 Lodge had been one of the men responsible for introducing the law in the
legislature

705

intelligent friend, who is in Wall Street and who is heroically endeavoring
to stand up for me against the general opposition, I found that he himself was
under the impression that I had started the insurance investigations, and that
the present feeling against property and menace to our prosperity was due to
this unwise action on my part. I explained, in the first place that I had
nothing whatever to do with starting them; that in the next place it was the
rascality that was shown and not the investigation that caused the trouble. He
declined to accept either view.

You did excellent work about the merger and I should think that Whitney
would be pretty well knocked out as a candidate. Ever yours

4355 • TO HERBERT LIVINGSTON SATTERLEE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 6, 1907

My dear Satterlee : 1 The enclosed editorial from The Evening Post shows the
damage done by such articles as that one appearing in The Navy. I supposed
that magazine was started for the purpose of helping us build up a fleet.
Articles like this in the Navy, from its foolish exaggeration, do harm and not
good. 2 It contains the kind of statements that bureau chiefs, when they get
into wrangles with one another, continually make; that disgruntled naval
officers who think they ought to have commands which they are not fit to
exercise, or which others are better fitted to exercise, continually repeat. The
publication of such an article gives to papers like the Post, which are desirous
only of breaking down the navy, a chance to score a small point in favor of
their consistent campaign for the dishonor of the American flag — and I
suppose that nothing m the world is so dear to the hearts of the editors of
The Evening Post as in any way lowering or weakening the prestige and
material efficiency of the American navy and army and the honor of the
American name. What a basely unpatriotic lot they are!

1 write you frankly because I know how strong a friend of the navy you
are, and I want to call this matter to your attention. Sincerely yours

Herbert Livingston Satterlee, Pierpont Morgan’s son-in-law and biographer, at
this time general counsel for the Navy League.

2 “Absolutely inexcusable” errors, the Navy claimed, marred the design of American
battleships. “Some of the defects in our earlier ships have been remedied m later ves-
sels, but others of our early mistakes — and serious mistakes, too — are displayed in all
their perfection in our newest battleships.” The two most serious defects cited by
the article were, first, the mam armor belt was too low to protect the hulls of many
of the ships, second, protection of the “soft ends” of the vessels was inadequate

The Evening Tost , delighted by such criticism of the Navy from the organ of
the Navy League, concluded that “according to the Navy, the American people
have been and are being buncoed into wasting millions of treasure upon ships that
are death traps in battle. . . Thus well does the Imperialistic Administration man-

age its own imperialistic business'”

Despite Roosevelt’s protests the Navy repeated its charges in later issues; see
Navy, I, 6:13-15; 7.8-11, 8- 1 2-1 6 (June, July, August 1907). The very real defects
in battleship design were to become a major naval problem for Roosevelt in 1908,
see Numbers 4549, 4782,

706

43 5^ • TO MURDO MACKENZIE

Confidential

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, July 6, 1907

Dear Mr. Mackenzie : I thank you for your very interesting letter, and I
deeply appreciate, my dear sir, all you did at the convention. 1 It rather looks
to me as if the Teller-Mondell crowd had fizzled out at the convention, and
that there is not much needed in the way of another convention; but I
should think your judgment much better than mine in the matter.

Pray treat this letter as entirely confidential. Sincerely yours

4357 • TO LAWRENCE FRASER ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 8, 1907

My dear Abbott: Three cheers for Mrs. Abbott and the boy! I am as pleased
as possible. I earnestly hope that Mrs. Abbott is doing well. When she can
receive them, pray extend to her my heartiest congratulations. The pains of
childbirth render all men the debtors of all women, and the one person
whom I sincerely put above even the best type of soldier is the best type of
mother. As for the “success” of which we hear so much, the real success is
open to every man and woman, from the President and his wife to the day
laborer and his wife, if they have the right stuff in them; for the real success is
for the man to be able to keep his family as they should be kept, for the
woman to bear her part within the household, and for both to have, together
with their children, the kind of family life that all of us ought to have.

I think you are right in regretting that I went into this nature-faker fight.
This is another way of saying that a President ought not to go into anything
outside of his work as President; that he ought not to do as Gladstone did
and take an interest in outside studies of any kind. But it is rather a hard
proposition to live up to. For instance, in The Outlook I reviewed Robinson’s
poems because I felt that he merited more consideration than he had re-
ceived and that my position as President gave the chance to call attention to
him. In the same way, I wrote an article on the Irish sagas because it seemed
to me that intelligent laymen should take a greater interest in them. So in the
same way I have written articles on hunting and outdoor life. (I do not know
whether in what I have said on race suicide and on various labor and social
questions I ought to be held as going outside of my proper position or not;
but you must remember that, as President Pritchett says, the by-products of
the Presidency are important, and I am mighty glad to have had the chance
to say my say on certain big moral matters.) But I will not write in praise if

1 Murdo Mackenzie, then head of the American National Livestock Association,
supported Roosevelt’s general purpose of regulating the use of the public domain.
Like many other holders of large grazing lands, he had stood by the President at
Denver. The big cattlemen in contrast to their smaller rivals felt that Roosevelt, in
the interest of conservation, shared their professional desire to protect the domain
from destruction produced by highly competitive sheep and cattle grazing.

707

I do not write, where necessary, in blame. Most certainly the President never
should condemn any man unless the offense is flagrant and unless the facts are
absolutely undoubted. I condemn Long simply because he is so impudent and
so shameless an impostor, and has such real ability of its kind, that I felt he was
in danger of discrediting nature study generally. Scientific observers feel
very strongly about Long. I am, I think I may say, to a certain extent an
outdoor naturalist. For instance, today I have gotten and am sending to the
New York Museum of Natural History a warbler, the Dominican, which is
practically new to this part of the country. I know a good deal about the
big animals of the wilderness. Mr. Long’s preposterous falsehoods give me
precisely the feeling that an archaeologist would have if Rider Haggard
solemnly produced She not as a novel but as a genuine archaeological and
ethnological discovery in Central Africa. As a novel, She is an excellent book
of adventure and I enjoyed reading it. I suppose it has gone out of fashion
now, or I would be pleased to have my children read it; but if it were
produced as a genuine bit of contemporary history, a study of Africa today,
and as such were put in the schools, and I was the only person prominent
enough from my position to call attention to the preposterous nature of
what was being done, I should feel obliged to thus call attention to it.

Having started the contest, I shall now see it thru, and shall publish in
Everybody’s Magazine an article which will be my last contribution on the
matter.

I send you herewith clippings that have been sent me, which will give
you the views of two New York naturalists whom you can at any time see,
and will also give you the view of a country observer in Ohio, who has to
deal with Mr. Long’s fictions, not about any big wild beasts, but about as
common a little animal as a red squirrel. I also enclose you a long letter
written to me by one of our very best and most accurate outdoor observers,
Mr. George Shiras, the son of Justice Shiras of the Supreme Court, now re-
tired. Shiras did not know whether to be most indignant at Long or most
amused at anyone believing him. He said he would write about him in a
jocose spirit. He has sent the article to me, but I haven’t the slightest idea
what to do with it and I do not suppose anyone would wish to print it.
Will you return all the enclosures to me when you have read them 5 Sin-
cerely yours

4358 • to emily b. smith Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, July 9, 1907

My dear Mrs. Smith: It is with very real regret that I find myself unable to
accept your invitation to be present at Amesbury on the occasion of the one
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Whittier. I have always felt a peculiar
affection and reverence for the “good gray poet.” I do not for one moment
subscribe to the belief that we can divorce the art of the artist, and especially

708

the art of the man of letters, from character, and from the teachings that
mould character. It seems to me that all good Americans should feel a peculiar
pride in Whittier, exactly because he combined the power of expression, and
the great gift of poetry, with a flaming zeal for righteousness which made him
a leader in matters of the spirit no less than of the intellect. Faithfully yours

4359 • to henry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss.

Confidential Oyster Bay, July io, 1907

Dear Cabot : The enclosed letter from Cooley shows, I think, that we ought
not to except these positions of inspectors under the new naturalization law.
I find that there is a universal protest against making the exceptions. They
say that in most localities to make the exceptions would work great damage.
Of course treat Cooley’s letter as confidential and return it to me.

As regards the fleet going to the Pacific, there has been no change, save
that the naval board decided sooner than I had expected. 1 1 could not enter-
tain any proposition to divide the fleet and send some vessels there, which
has been the fool proposition of our own jingoes; but this winter we shall
have reached the period when it is advisable to send the whole fleet on a prac-
tice cruise around the world. It became evident to me, from talking with
the naval authorities, that in the event of war they would have a good deal
to find out in the way of sending the fleet to the Pacific. Now, the one thing
that I won’t run the risk of is to experiment for the first time in a matter of
vital importance in time of war. Accordingly I concluded that it was impera-
tive that we should send the fleet on what would practically be a practice
voyage. I do not intend to keep it in the Pacific for any length of time; but
I want all failures, blunders, and shortcomings to be made apparent in time
of peace and not in time of war. Moreover, I think that before matters be-
come more strained we had better make it evident that when it comes to
visiting our own coasts on the Pacific or Atlantic and assembling the fleet in
our own waters, we cannot submit to any outside protests or interference.

1 First in newspaper “leaks” and then in official statements by Secretary Metcalf, the
plan to send a fleet of battleships to the Pacific had been divulged. Late in August,
Loeb, revealing the details, announced that sixteen battleships would sail to San
Francisco via the Strait of Magellan. Even then, however, there was no public refer-
ence to the world cruise which Roosevelt had in mind. For almost two years
naval authorities had contemplated an extended practice cruise, and officially this was
the purpose of the circumnavigation of the globe by the “great white fleet.” Clearly,
however, as his correspondence throughout 1907 demonstrates, Roosevelt planned the
cruise with Japan in mind. “In my own judgment,” he later explained, “the most im-
portant service that I rendered to peace was the voyage of the battle fleet round the
world” (Autobiography, Nat. Ed. XX, 535 ff.). For a full account of the announce-
ment of the batdeship cruise and of the reaction of public opinion in the United
States and Japan, as well as for an excellent analysis or the relation of the cruise to
Japanese-American affairs, see Bailey, Roosevelt and the J apanese-American Crises,
ch. x.

709

Curiously enough, the Japs have seen this more quickly than our own
people.

I have the Japanese Ambassador and a Cabinet Minister out here the day
after tomorrow. I shall continue to do everything I can by politeness and
consideration to the Japs to offset the worse than criminal stupidity of the
San Francisco mob, the San Francisco press, and such papers as the New York
Herald . I do not believe we shall have war; but it is no fault of the yellow
press if we do not have it. The Japanese seem to have about the same propor-
tion of prize jingo fools that we have.

Love to Nannie. Ever yours

4360 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, July 10, 1907

My dear Mr . Attorney General: I enclose herewith the report of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission on the Harriman matter, together with a letter
sent me on the same subject by Commissioner Lane, with a map, also en-
closed, and a letter sent by Commissioner Knapp. 1 It seems to me that Lane’s
view is the proper one. It is also the view held by Mr. Kellogg, 2 counsel
for the Commission, who personally brought me this report. At our last
interview I gathered that this was very strongly your opinion; in fact, I think
the expression of your opinion at the conference was not without influence
in settling the minds of the Commission as to the course they should pursue.
If you are still of the same opinion I think it would be a good thing for
you to communicate with Lane and arrange for the publication of this
report simultaneously with your announcement of the suit that you intend
to undertake. But all these arrangements I of course leave entirely to you, and

1 The commission’s report, describing the purchase by the Union Pacific of securities
of other railroads, stated that “the effect of the control of the Southern Pacific by the
Union Pacific has been .... to eliminate competition between them in transconti-
nental business.” The report, however, did not recommend any judicial action For a
brief summary of the report see the Twenty-First Annual Report of the Interstate
Commerce Comrmsston (Washington, 1907), pp 22-24. Lane and Kellogg, like
Bonaparte, favored an antitrust suit against the Harriman combination, but Knapp
questioned the ability of the government to wm such a suit. The Justice Department
did not initiate proceedings against the Union Pacific until November 1908. After an
adverse decision in the circuit court, the government finally won the suit in the
Supreme Court in 1912.

“Frank Billings Kellogg, Minnesota Republican, national committeeman, 1 904-1 91 2,
former law partner of Cushman K. Davis, whose intelligent conservatism in
domestic affairs he shared, served during Roosevelt’s administration as special coun-
sel for the United States m the paper trust, Standard Oil, and Union Pacific cases.
Later United States Senator, 1 91 7-1 923, ambassador to Great Britain, 1923-1925, and
Secretary of State, 1925-1929, Kellogg earned his largest reputation for his co-opera-
tion with Briand in the negotiation of their completely un-Rooseveltian pact to
outlaw war.

710

I shall only ask that you communicate with Mr. Lane in the matter as soon as
possible.

I hate to be interrupting your holiday as much as I have to by getting
you to take up these different matters. You are the one member of the
Cabinet with whom I seem to have to commumcate steadily, holiday or no
holiday. But at least you have what comfort can be obtained from the
knowledge that I am working every day myself, and that tho I am having
some holiday, it is only to the extent of averaging my afternoons free. I some-
times get a couple of hours for a ride in the morning, but this is offset by the
fact that I have to work for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Faithfully
yours

July nth

P.S. I have received your letter of the 9th, and approve of all you have
done. I suppose I am in for an awful row about Bratton, 8 but it obviously
cannot be helped.

As for McBlair, 4 don’t you think it would be well to have him marry Miss
Key when he has done say fifty per cent of the work on those Oregon land
grant ca ses> I make this proposal in the interest of Miss Key; and I am not
sure but I ought to say that the marriage should take place as a preliminary to
his undertaking the work at all!

Seriously, I again want to congratulate you upon the course taken m the
tobacco case. It looks as if we had at last struck a really efficient way of deal-
ing with corporations that insolently defy the law. By the way, I am per-
fectly delighted with the view that the conservative papers now take to the
effect that nothing shows my ingrained lawlessness more clearly than this
particular invocation of law.

Congressman Hepburn was here today, is very enthusiastic about your
action, and anxious that I should in some way identify him to you so that
you would talk freely with him. He desires, I think sincerely, to be of use to
us next winter.

4361 • TO MARTIN AUGUSTINE KNAPP Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, July 10, 1907

My dear Mr. Knapp: I thank you for your letter, and I agree with you. I
believe that the Federal Government should hereafter have complete control
of the issue of securities by carriers engaged in interstate commerce, and of
the use of the proceeds, and that no railroad should own any stock in any
other railroad unless with the explicit approval of the Federal authorities.
Sincerely yours

* Ulysses S Bratton, Assistant United States Attorney for the Arkansas District.

4 A McDonald McBlair, an assistant attorney in the Attorney General’s office
Whether or not he married Miss Key could not be discovered.

4 3 6 2 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July io, 1907

Dear Will: Loeb has shown me your note with the Stratton correspondence.
Stratton represents a crowd which threatened to go for Foraker when they
thought the officeholders were going to declare for you or Fairbanks. I
have had Cooley down here about the Alabama matter . 1 1 am myself utterly at
sea as to what the Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi delegates will do. I believe
that you will find that at the convention the delegates from these three states
will be for you; but I would not guarantee one of them any more than I
would guarantee the delegates from South Carolina, for I do not feel that
there is a real Republican party in any one of the States, altho we once
elected a Republican Congressman from Alabama.

Hadley has written me, and Herbert Knox Smith has seen me, saying that
they think Beach a distinctly better man than Noyes. Now, how strongly do
you feel in the matter? I do not feel that you owe anything to the Senators,
and I am perfectly willing to nominate Beach and let them do as they think
best about supporting him. On the other hand I have a certain reluctance
to allow them to support a man who is not as good as the other, when there
is not any reason or policy why we should permit them to .... I am going
to follow your judgment in the matter if you feel very strongly on the sub-
ject; but my own inclination .... say, what is the truth, that in these ju-
dicial appointments I want to get the very best man, that the inquiries I have
made make me feel that Beach is the best man, and that I shall nominate him.
His record on labor inclines me to nominate him anyhow. Ever yours

July nth

P.S. I have just received your letter of the 7th. I am mightily pleased
to learn that about New Hampshire. Most certainly I would hold the Ohio
convention just as soon as possible. I should regard February as uncom-
fortably late myself!

I saw Kellogg, from Minnesota, and had a very nice talk with him. He is
sure you are going to be nominated. Meyer feels confident he will get you
the majority of Massachusetts men.

If you feel the way you do about the Brownsville speech, then my judg-

1 In Alabama, Vice-President Fairbanks’ managers had been negotiating with the
Republican organization leaders who had long resented Roosevelt’s many appoint-
ments of Gold Democrats in the state. The Fairbanks men promised to reverse
this policy, whereas Taft had earlier announced that he approved of it. To under-
mine the political appeal of the Fairbanks group, Roosevelt, however, had reversed
his own policy. The term of United States District Attorney Roulhac, a capable
Democrat, expired in 1907. Instead of reappointing him, Roosevelt selected Oliver D
Street, the candidate of the Alabama Republican patronage referees The President
also, however, made sure that the Justice Department considered Street competent
for the job.

712

ment is that you should follow Lodge’s advice and not that I gave you. All
I want to impress upon you is that you must not let the impression get
abroad that Foraker m any way has the best of the situation, or that you
are afraid of standing up to him. Of course, to anyone who knows the facts,
such an accusation would be ridiculous; but we don’t want to let people
even think that it is possibly true.

4363 * TO JOHN LANE HARRINGTON Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, July 10, 1907

My dear Sir John: 1 1 send you the two photographs herewith. If you want
to keep for yourself also the one that I have labeled for the Emperor of
Ethiopia, you may do so, because I find that Skinner 2 presented him with one
of mine on glass — the kind that you hang up in a window and look thru.
It was in the canonical frock coat, and Skinner reported that the Emperor
lookt at it for at least an hour with fascinated interest.

It was a pleasure to see you here at lunch the other day. If you are ever on
this side again be sure to let me know. Sincerely yours

4364 • to thomas james o’brien Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, July 1 1, 1907

My dear Mr. Ambassador : 1 Your engagements must indeed have been im-
portant if they either required or warranted your not accepting the invitation
of the Japan Society. You are just going as Ambassador to Japan. Under such
circumstances I assume that the reasons were very serious which prevented
you from taking part in such an opportunity to join in paying some distin-
guished act of courtesy to Japanese representatives of so much importance,
especially at this particular time.

Had you come on you would have lunched the following day with me to
meet the Japanese Ambassador and ex-Naval Minister. As it is I desire that
you communicate at once with Secretary Root to find when it will be agree-
able to him to see you and go over the situation as it will affect your duties in
Japan. Very truly yours

1 Sir John Lane Harrington, British army and foreign service officer, son-in-law of
United States Senator McMillan, British minister to Ethiopia, 1903.
a Robert P. Skinner, long-time Umted States foreign service officer, m 1903 on
special service to negotiate a treaty and establish trade relations between this
country and Ethiopia.

3 Thomas James O’Brien, Michigan Republican, minister to Denmark, 1905-1907;
on July r, 1907, appointed ambassador to Japan

4 3 <5 5 * T0 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, July 12, 1907

Dear Will: Parsons happens to be here at the moment I am dictating a reply
to your letter, which I shall show to him. Thornton is of no consequence
whatever. I have never been entirely free from doubts about the worthy
Cromwell, but if you put Gabriel, Cromwell and Thornton in the same room,
Cromwell and Gabriel would have to go in the same bunch!

Won’t you let me send Thomas’ letter to Bonaparte. I am sorry to say
that things do not look well for Borah in connection with those land fraud
cases. 1 We have put off action on them until next winter, so as not to inter-
fere with the prosecution of the Western Federation of Miners. Ever yours

43 66 • TO FREDERICK MORGAN DAVENPORT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 13, 1907

My dear Professor Davenport: Not only did I naturally like your article
from the personal standpoint, but what is far more important, I feel that it
teaches exactly the lesson which should be taught. 1 In the very copy of The
Outlook in which it appears, on the first page there is an editorial referring to
a decision of the New York Court of Appeals which eminently justifies your
article. Are you acquainted with Alger’s little volume of essays entitled
Moral Overstrain? 2 So far as I know I have never hesitated to deal fearlessly
,with the labor people when I thought them wrong; to deal with the labor
unions m the Moyer-Haywood-Debs matter; with the Chicago strikers under
the lead of Shea; with the fight about the open shop in the Miller case in
the Government Printing Office, with the delegates from the labor unions
when they called upon me, under Gompers; and so forth and so forth. I
am well aware that the tyranny of the labor union is quite as obnoxious as the
tyranny of the corporation. Moreover, I am well aware that many juries tend
to decide for the labor union rather than for the corporation. But with most

a For Borah’s difficulties see No 4391.

1 Frederick Morgan Davenport, professor of political science at Hamilton College, in
1912 Progressive candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York, had written
that Roosevelt’s sharp criticism of certain court decisions was not, as railway and
banking officials claimed, an intimidation of the judiciary by the executive. The
President’s criticism, Davenport emphasized, had been levied at the use by the
courts of legal fictions to invalidate social legislation A case m point was the de-
cision of the New York Court of Appeals which declared that a law preventing
the employment of women m night factory work was an unconstitutional interfer-
ence with the right of contract Davenport concluded that “President Roosevelt’s
intimidation of the judiciary resolves itself into the use of a strong man’s Constitu-
tional powers in the interest of the rights of the humblest citizen.” — Outlook , 86*553-
555 (July 13 , 1907 )*

2 In his Moral Overstrain (Boston, 1906), George William Alger ably pleaded his
case for enlightened labor legislation.

714

of our judges it seems to me that the direct reverse is the case; and I have
done my best, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, to get judges who
would possess the knowledge of, and therefore broad sympathy with, the
men who work with their hands, that they already have for the more pros-
perous members of the community, for those who do not work with their
hands.

If you are in Washington next winter, be sure to let me see you. Sincerely
yours

4367 • TO JAMES FRANKLIN BELL Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 13, 1907

My dear General Bell: I am much concerned over the difficulty of keeping
enlisted men in the army. I am told that the practice marches are partly
responsible for this difficulty. If so, I feel that it is a severe reflection upon
the commanding officers under whom the practice marches have been taken.
This year you will of course give me full information about any officers who
have to go in wagons on these practice marches, or show other signs of in-
capacity.

Is there any way of finding out in what commands there has been the
greatest proportional falling-off in the numbers of the enlisted men, or the
greatest difficulty in securing their re-enlistment, and the causes therefor 5
Must the order about practice marches be in any way modified?

I had a very interesting talk with Colonel Wotherspoon when he was here.
He is a fine fellow. When are we going to make him a brigadier general? It
is sometime this fall, is it not? 1 Sincerely yours

4368 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 13, 1907

My dear Bonaparte: I think it was a pity that the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission published their report as quickly as they did. Take your own time
of course in coming to your conclusion and announcing it, as of course there
is no reason for haste now, whereas it is important to be sure that we can
stand on whatever we do.

I guess you are right about the New York Tress. It must be representative
of the Standard Oil crew in some shape or way. I believe they also represent
Hearst. However, from my knowledge of the men in control of the paper
I should think them quite capable of going wrong on every subject without
any outside assistance.

I am taking much hearty enjoyment from the fact that the chief organs

'William Wallace Wotherspoon received his brigadier’s commission in October
1907 and for the following two years was president of the Army War College.

7 1 5

of the “fatted soul of things” in New York now regard you as a rather more
dangerous criminal lunatic than they do me. The attitude of the high finan-
ciers on this question seems to be that it is obviously anarchistic for the
officer of the law to endeavor to take such freedom under the law as will
really stop. . . .

But after all, no financier and mighty few mob leaders can be worse than
a man like Senator Hale. He is of course an arrant physical coward, and
this accounts for part of his gibbering fear of seeing the army or the navy
efficient. It is much such an attitude as makes an old lady even more afraid
of a revolver than of the burglar against which the revolver is designed to
protect her. But in addition to the quality of physical cowardice, Hale is
cursed with such utter lack of patriotism that he cannot even be argued with
by having it pointed out to him that to keep the navy and army as inefficient
as he desires, and to show abject cowardice in the presence of foreigners, may
be to court the very disaster he fears. Down in his shriveled soul he would
far rather see the nation kicked than see it fight to avoid being kicked; so
there isn’t any argument we can make that will appeal to him. Faithfully
yours

P.S. Your letter of the 13th has just come, and I laughed so over your
entire account of the Florida judgeship that Mrs. Roosevelt came running in
from the next room to know what was the matter and I showed her your
description of Judge Pritchard’s heated sincerity in advocating Seattle, and
the remarkable letter of the wife of Candidate Barton' From what you say,
obviously the thing to do is to appoint Sheppard. 1

I am in a quandary about the Connecticut judgeship. Are you going to be
anywhere near New York in the course of the next month, so that you could
stop off and see me at lunch or spend the night here, whichever is most con-
venient to you? I should like much to go over the situation with you.

I have broken the news to the Arkansas people that Bratton will have to
go. Their yells fill the heavens and they apparently think it may turn the
delegation wrong side to! However, I told them that under the circumstances
I could not stand for the man; that your report settled it. Will you consult
Remmel 2 in connection with nominating his successor?

The Harriman report is so important that if the opportunity comes and
you can run down from Lenox to see me we might go over the rough draft of
your statement together, if you are willing. The Interstate Commerce Com-
mission ought not to have tried to rush you in the matter, and have done
themselves an injury by publishing the report before it was possible for you
to take action, for they have given the impression that they have made rather
a milk-and-water report. Have you got hold of Kellogg’s original draft to
the Commission*

1 William Bostwick Sheppard, attorney general for the Northern District of Florida,

was appointed district judge of same district on September j, 1907.

3 Harmon L. Remmel, United States marshal at Little Rock, Arkansas.

716

43^9 * TO ELIHU ROOT

Personal

Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, July 13, 1907

Dear Ehhu: I suppose you have read Wilson’s admirable memorandum on
the Japanese situation. 1 Incidentally, let me say how well he has justified
your choice of him as Assistant Secretary of the Department.

I am more concerned over this Japanese situation than almost any other.
Thank Heaven we have the navy in good shape. It is high time, however, that
it should go on a cruise around the world. In the first place I think it will
have a pacific effect to show that it can be done; and in the next place, after
talking thoroly over the situation with the naval board I became convinced
that it was absolutely necessary for us to try in time of peace to see just what
we could do in the way of putting a big battle fleet in the Pacific, and not
make the experiment in time of war. Moreover, the hideous cowardice and
stupidity of many of our people, which match the hideous sensationalism
and offensiveness of many of the yellow press, are almost as serious a menace
to us in our foreign relations. A goodly number of our papers spend their
time in insulting the Japanese and in writing articles which, when they are
repeated, as they are sure to be, in Japan, cause the greatest irritation against
us. An equally large body of people never by any chance comment on or
rebuke this action, but confine themselves to action which in its turn tends
to convince foreigners that in addition to being blusterers we are cowards.
Take Hale, for instance. He is a conscienceless voluptuary, and in his private
affairs, both in business and politics, he is as astute as he is unscrupulous. 2 But
in addition to being a physical coward without one scrap of patriotism or of
understanding what patriotism is, he is also a fool when it comes to dealing
with foreign affairs or with the army and navy. Never in the Senate has he
uttered one word to rebuke Tillman, for instance, or anyone like Tillman,
when language exasperating and provocative to Japan was used. Never has he
said a word to support us in our effort to secure good treatment for the
Japanese. His consistent theory is not to interfere with our being as offensive
and irritating to Japan, as possible, but to try to prevent at all hazards the
navy from being either efficient or respected, and to cheerfully incur the risk
of being kicked by any foreign power rather than show our ability to fight.

1 It is not clear to which specific memorandum Roosevelt referred, but Huntington
Wilson, during his tenure as Third Assistant Secretary of State, 1906-1908, constantly
favored using a “stiff tone” to the Japanese. Later m July, when Ambassador Aoki
maintained that the action of the San Francisco Police Board violated the treaty of
1894, Wilson and Adee vigorously asserted that it did not Wilson also continually
urged Root to press the Japanese to abide more closely by the “Gentlemen’s Agree-
ment ”

2 Theodore Roosevelt, it must be clear by now, was inclined to assume that opposition
to his views was the product of moral turpitude. He said, m this letter and the one
preceding it, many unkind and untrue things about Senator Hale Among all the
things he thought of to call that stern, controlled, and honest man, none is more
hilariously inaccurate than “conscienceless voluptuary.”

717

Even from his own contemptible standpoint his policy is bad; for he spends
his time in increasing the likelihood of the very dangers the thought of which
casts him into such spasms of terror.

Aoki and Admiral Yamamoto were out here yesterday at lunch. Aoki is
a singularly cool-headed and wise old boy. I am afraid he is much more so
than his fellow countrymen. Yamamoto, an ex-Cabinet Minister and a man of
importance, evidently had completely misunderstood the situation here and
what the possibilities were. I had a long talk with him thru an interpreter.
He kept insisting that the Japanese must not be kept out save as we kept out
Europeans. I kept explaining to him that what we had to do was to face facts;
that if American laboring men came in and cut down the wages of Japanese
laboring men they would be shut out of Japan in one moment; and that
Japanese laborers must be excluded from the U. S. on economic grounds . 3 I
told him emphatically that it was not possible to admit Japanese laborers into
the United States. I pointed out to him those rules which Wilson quoted in
his memorandum, which show that the Japanese Government has already in
force restrictions against American laborers coming into Japan, save in the
old treaty ports. I pointed out that under our present treaty we had explicitly
reserved the right to exclude Japanese laborers. I talked freely of the intended
trip of the battleship fleet thru the Pacific, mentioning that it would return
home very shortly after it had been sent out there, at least in all probability.
I also was most complimentary about Japan, and repeated at length the
arguments that I had written to Takahira and Kaneko. How much impression
I made upon him I cannot say. Meanwhile, I have received, and enclose to
you, the disquieting statistics of the Japanese arrivals in the United States for
the fiscal year just closed as compared with the fiscal year preceding. There
has been a great increase in these arrivals; and for the last two months, during
which the new policy has been in effect, while the increase is less marked, it
still exists. More Japanese came here during May and June than during the
preceding May and June, or than during March and April. I am inclined to
think that many of them who come as petty traders are really laborers. In
any event I believe we shall have to urge most strongly upon the Japanese
Government the need of restricting the total number of passports if we are
not to have trouble. If there is not a falling off in the number of Japanese
arrivals, I think we can safely count upon at least a very dangerous agitation
in Congress next year for their total exclusion by a law modeled after our
Chinese exclusion act.

The Newfoundland business 4 and similar matters are mere child’s play

* Convinced at this time that the feeling against the Japanese originated as much in
economic fear as in racial prejudice, and anxious to persuade the Japanese that
this was the case, Roosevelt suggested to Root that the United States attempt
to negotiate an immigration restriction agreement with Greece. The suggestion came
to nothing.

4 “The Newfoundland business,” by virtue of the successful negotiations of Root and
Reid, was to be referred to the Hague Tribunal. The decision to resort to arbitration

718

compared with this Japanese business, from the standpoint of its ultimate
importance.

I am not at all sure that later you ought not to come out here and have
a talk with me. When you do I hope you will bring Mrs. Root. I do not
think she has ever been here.

Bacon is a great comfort, as always, m your absence. Ever yours

4370 * TO LAWRENCE O. MURRAY Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, July 13, 1907

To the Acting Secretary of Commerce and Labor : 1 The admissions of
Japanese during May and June, instead of showing any falling off, show an
increase over those admitted in March and April and an increase over those
admitted in May and June of last year. I am more concerned over this
Japanese question in all its bearings than over any other, including that of the
trusts. Will it not be possible hereafter, or certainly for the next two or
three months, to get the occupations of all the men admitted — that is, the
occupations they profess* Would it not also be possible to find out how many
formerly came in thru Hawaii or thru Canada or Mexico, so that we can
find out the net comparison as regards those who come directly to the United
States* There is no one matter where we want to be armed with so full a
statement of facts. Of the “petty traders” who come here from Japan, how
many really go into some form of manual labor*

4371 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, July 15, 1907

Dear Will: I thoroly approve of course of Governor Smith’s action about the
request of the Japanese Consul.

I am going to talk with Bonaparte about Beach. If I appoint him I shall
make a statement to the effect that one of my main reasons was to get on
the court a man who had knowledge of, and real sympathy with, the real
needs of labor. He has been counsel for a labor union. He has not a demagogic
hair on his body; but he has got the sense not to give iniquitous decisions like
that which the New York Court of Appeals has just rendered in insisting that
employers’ liability acts are all invalid because it is not competent for the
community to prohibit the freedom of contract under which a half-starved
and ignorant girl deprives herself of the right to protest against her employer’s

was reached m 1907, although the treaty providing for it was not completed until
1909. In 1907 Root and “Reid also arranged a modus vivendi to govern Anglo-
American relations at the fisheries until the arbitration should be completed.

1 Murray, while Straus was on vacation, was Acting Secretary of Commerce and
Labor.

719

brutal disregard of the appalling danger to life and limb in which he has
placed her.

After consultation with me, Loeb and I decided to send Vorys’ letter to
you on to Postmaster General Meyer with directions to take personal charge
of the Ohio appointments and to follow your recommendations. Please have
Vorys hereafter write to Meyer instead of Hitchcock. 1 Ever yours

4372 • TO HERMANN SPECK VON STERNBERG Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 16, 1907

Dear Speck: Many thanks for your very interesting letter. This whole
Japanese business is very puzzling; I suppose because there are such deep
racial differences that it is very hard for any of us of European descent to
understand them or be understood by them. It seems simply incredible that
the Japanese should go to Mexico with any intention of organizing an armed
force to attack us from the Mexican border in the event of war with Japan.
Such an attack could have no permanent effect save one of extreme irritation
and anger. The (number of) Japanese immigrants of military age in Hawaii
are the only ones that could offer a serious military problem in the event of
war, save as an occasional spy or a secret agent might do some damage to our
means of communication, or might procure plans of a fort or vessel. In
Hawaii many of the coolies return to the islands, after they have gone back
to Japan announcing their intention to stay there. These coolies, however,
profess — and I believe they are truthful — that they return to Hawaii be-
cause after the freedom of life there they find that there is “too much govern-
ment” in Japan; that they are too much hampered and restricted, and cannot
lead their lives as they wish. I am much puzzled by the desire of the Japanese
to become naturalized, as to do so they would have to forswear allegiance to
their own emperor and country. I do not understand how they can so ear-
nestly desire it and yet wish to remain Japanese. Our more unscrupulous, fool-
ish newspapers and certain jingoes and labor leaders, and a corresponding peo-
ple in Japan, do all they can to cause trouble between the two countries; but
as yet there is literally not one reason why war should ensue I am endeavoring
to right every wrong that the Japanese suffer here, and have as yet not received
a protest from their government about any conduct of ours. I shall treat them
not only with justice but with every courtesy and consideration, and have
gathered enough troops in the neighborhood of San Francisco to be able
to take prompt action should there be such rioting and violence against the
Japanese that the municipal and State authorities could not protect them. At
the same time I am keeping the fleet exercised and trained, and shall of course
pay not the slightest heed to the yell of physical cowards like Hale against
our sending this fleet to the Pacific. I decline for one moment to consider any

1 Since March, Taft’s manager in Ohio had been Arthur I. Vorys This deft political

arranger was also active by July on a national scale; see Pringle, Taft, I, 321.

•

720

protest against our sending our entire battle fleet to any part of our own
dominions which it seems advisable the fleet should visit; and I think a cruise
from one ocean to the other, or around the world, is mighty good practice
for a fleet.

In short, I do not believe that there will be trouble, and I am taking
all the steps possible for me to take both to prevent it and to prevent its
being disastrous if it should come. But of course the situation gives me
some' concern; for the Japanese are a formidable military power and have
unknown possibilities both as regards their power and as regards their
motives and purposes. Moreover, we of the United States suffer in aggregated
form from all the evils attendant upon our luxurious, pleasure-loving, indus-
trial, modem civilization. In Germany you have universal military service,
so that there is at least a partial offset to some of the unpleasant tendencies of
our modem civilization; but in the United States, while there are many
tendencies for good which I do not for one moment ignore, and while the
people have, I believe, fundamentally the same great qualities that they
showed in the Civil War, there are nevertheless certain ominous signs of
frivolity, of a lack of sense of proportion in ideals, and of inordinate love of
ease and of pleasure, and an overemphasis upon merely material well-being.
From my point of view the fool who continually screams against war and
for peace, without regard to whether one or the other is righteous, is as
noxious as the wealthy man in whom the desire to achieve wealth has
swallowed up all thoughts of patriotism, and of pride in the exercise of the
manlier virtues. I was so utterly disgusted with the nonsense chattered by the
extreme advocates of peace here that it was difficult for me to take a proper
interest in the Hague proceedings. I abhor men like Hale, and papers like the
Evening Post and Nation, m all of whom there exists absolute physical dread
of danger and hardship, and who therefore tend to hysterical denunciation
and fear of war. A sentimental humanitarianism, when combined with a
gross sentimentalism, and the lack of power to look afar, whether in time or
space, make it difficult for a country to do well in either domestic or foreign
affairs. Nevertheless I retain a strong belief in the fundamental good sense
and the manliness of the American people, and in spite of all violent oscilla-
tions before a crisis, I think that when a crisis comes they will rise to meet
it. But if they do not prepare in advance for war great loss and damage are
sure to ensue if by any chance a war should come. My foreign policy as
regards the Japanese (and as regards the rest of the world) is perfectly
simple. I shall try to do exact justice to them; to show them every considera-
tion and courtesy; to ask nothing from them that we should not be willing
to grant them in return ourselves, and at the same time to make it evident
that in following out this course I am not in the slightest degree influenced by
fear of them, and that I will no more permit my country to be wronged
than I will sanction its committing wrong in return.

I was greatly annoyed by the infamous statements in the newspapers

721

about your health. Fortunately I knew that they were false and that you
were in good trim. I am delighted to hear that you and the Baroness have
gotten horses to your taste. Give her my warm regards. Ever faithfully yours
[Handwritten] Many thanks for your kind telegram about the dreadful
disaster on the Georgia. 1

4373 ■ T0 albert jarvis hopkins Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 18, 1907

My dear Senator: The papers credit you (of course falsely) with saying that
we had a conference yesterday and reached the conclusion that nothing could
be done about the tariff until after the election. Of course we did not and
could not reach any conclusion at all about the matter, and I regret exceedingly
that it was so much as mentioned that there was a conference. I hope that if
you have to say anything at all as to what took place here about the tariff,
you will merely state the exact facts, namely, that you did not come here to
speak about it at all; that the subject was mentioned only in an incidental
way; 1 and that not only was no conclusion reached, but there was no pro-
posal even as to definite action. Nothing could be more unwise for the very
object we have in view than the announcement at this time of our having
reached a conclusion or having adopted a general policy, which, as a matter
of fact, of course could only be adopted after a general consultation all
around. Sincerely yours

4374 • to oscar king davis Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 20, 1907

My dear Mr. Davis : 1 Anything from you is sure to have my most respectful
and careful consideration. I have immensely admired the work you have done
in connection with this trial. Nothing has bothered me more than the indict-
ment of Senator Borah, but I think, with the grand jury acting as it did, even

1 A flareback explosion in a turret of the U.S.S. Georgia had killed nine men and
injured eighteen.

1 Roosevelt could hardly have been surprised that the subject of the tariff was
mentioned, for he had invited to luncheon on July 17, in addition to Senator Hop-
kins, a standpatter from Illinois, Herbert E Miles of the Wisconsin Tariff Revision
League. The newspaper reports of this incidental luncheon conversation, whether
or not they were supplied by Hopkins, bore a striking resemblance to Roosevelt’s
tariff views, particularly on the desirability of a tariff commission, as expressed m
his private letter to Miles, see No. 4387.

1 Oscar King Davis, a reporter in the tradition of Richard Harding (no kin) Davis.
Attracted by the personality and views of Theodore Roosevelt he became secretary
of the Progressive National Committee in 1912. In his Released for Publication he
explains his relationship with Roosevelt and the other survivors of the field of
Armageddon at length At this time he was in Boise covering the Haywood trial for
the New York Times and the Philadelphia Public Ledger .

722

at the instigation of the District Attorney, I could do no worse thing for the
cause of justice, in this particular Moyer and Haywood case «than» to seem to
shield a United States Senator who was concerned in the prosecution. Of
course if what you say as to the proceedings in the grand jury room is true,
I should remove Ruick at once. 2 I shall put your letter before the Attorney
General and see if there is any way in which we can get at the matter.
Perhaps we can send a special agent out there. Sincerely yours

43 75 * T0 JAMES BRANDER MATTHEWS Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, July 20, 1907

Dear Brander: What delightful reading Lang always is! Your letter, with
his essay on the American President of the future, was sandwiched in this
morning between internal politics and our relations with Japan; and I appre-
ciated the diversion. Who but Lang could write with such genuine humor,
and be so amusing, and yet leave no sting behind* Faithfully yours

[Handwritten] By the way, I wish Lang could tell me if there really is
an ‘‘Aryan” race, Aryan speech, yes; Aryan race — well, I am very doubtful.

4376 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 22, 1907

Dear Cabot: Is the enclosed all right* 1 If not I give you carte blanche to in-
sert or erase anything and return it to me, and I will sign it again and send
it to you. I have written to Brownson 2 that under no circumstances is the
decision of the department about sending ships to Boston to be changed.

1 see the Boston He? aid has a long fake account of a fight between you
and myself and Crane. 3 I have not said anything, but of course will say any-
thing that you think I ought to if you think anything is necessary. It is

2 District Attorney Norman M. Ruick had been responsible for Borah’s indictment,
see No 4391, note 2.

1 Boston was sadly put out A naval squadron had been assigned to embellish the
celebration by Provincetown of the landing of the Pilgrims, while, as Roosevelt’s
enclosure to Lodge explained, no naval vessels were available for Boston’s Old Home
Week The President had drawn no invidious distinction between the passenger
list of the Mayflower and the settlers of the Bay Colony. It was only that a limited
number of ships could be spared, and Provincetown had asked first. While the
matter caused much post haste and romage in the hub of the universe, its effect on
the Republican strength m Boston was, in spite of the outraged protests of its city’s
Democratic mayor, negligible

2 Rear Admiral Willard Herbert Brownson had been appointed Chief of the Bureau
of Navigation on May 20, 1907.

3 The Herald on July 19 reported that Crane, “in a very defiant mood,” threatened
to resign rather than support Taft “He was not for Taft,” the Herald stated, “and
did not believe he could be nominated If that were treason, the President and Mr
Lodge could make the most of it” The Evening Transcript on the same day denied
the whole story. The Tra?i$cnpt admitted, however, that Crane shared Foraker’s
views, rather than Taft’s, on railroad regulation, the tariff, and Brownsville.

perfectly characteristic of these Herald scoundrels, who are always belabor-
ing you for standing up for the bosses, that they should now be belaboring
you because you do not stand up for Foraker. They announce in support of
Crane that his anger with Taft is due to the fact that Taft declined to make
a deal with Foraker, and apparently cheerfully join in the condemnation of
him for refusing to make such a deal. What dishonest scoundrels they are!
You and I have now been in active politics together for about a quarter of a
century, and during that time if I were asked to single out the people whom,
for moral and intellectual dishonesty, I thought lowest, I should single out
the professional mugwump, the goo-goo class, the professional followers
of the Nation , the Evening Post , and the like, the men who naturally be-
come anti-imperialists, just as they naturally become mugwumps; the men
who idealized Schurz, Godkin, and the other precious scoundrels whose
hypocrisy, mendacity and venom naturally attracted them. Ever yours

4377 • to Lawrence o. Murray Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, July 23, 1907

Dear Lawrence: Won’t you block out for my annual message something
about the work of the Keep Commission and the improvement we are
trying to secure in the internal administration of affairs in Washington^ 3
How would it do to consult Garfield and Pinchot about this> I think you
could do it best, however. 1 * Sincerely yours

4378 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Private Oyster Bay, July 23, 1907

Dear Elihu: I return you Denby’s letter, having first sent a copy to Taft. I
also send you a copy of a letter and enclosure which I have just received
from Bell and two strictly private letters from Speck. 1 How would it do

1 In his message to Congress in December Roosevelt praised the progress made by the
commission toward placing “the conduct of the executive force of the government
on the most economical and effective basis m the light of the best modern business
practice.” Although everythmg that could be done by executive order had been
achieved, Roosevelt pointed out that many important recommendations on per-
sonnel and the classification of salaries still required legislative approval, State Papers ,
Nat. Ed. XV, 459-460

1 These letters dealt with the war scare. Sternberg reported that the Japanese,
reorganizing their army at home, also had a potential army in Mexico. General Bell
had sent Roosevelt a letter from an army officer who had heard a Japanese diplomat

talk of taking the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, and the Pacific Coast. Although Bell
discounted this story, he observed that the United States was Japan’s most probable
enemy m the event of war Charles Denby, American consul general at Shanghai,

then visiting Germany, had written Root that French and German opinion expected
a Japanese-Amencan war within a few years and considered Japan a five-to-four
favorite m that case For fuller details on these reports, see Bailey, Roosevelt and the
Japanese- American Crises } ch xi.

724

for you to write me a letter nominally transmitting that of Denby’s to me,
and let me send yours and Denby’s to Governor Gillett with a letter of mine
which, if published, would do no harm? 2 All that Denby says I had already
gathered from various sources, including the exact ratio of the chances against
us in the German mind, 5 to 4. In France, England and Germany the best
information is that we shall have war with Japan and that we shall be beaten/
My own judgment is that the only thing that will prevent war is the Japa-
nese feeling that we shall not be beaten, and this feeling we can only excite
by keeping and making our navy efficient in the highest degree. It was evi-
dently high time that we should get our whole battle fleet on a practice
voyage to the Pacific. I have not the slightest doubt that unexpected defects
will appear in coaling, repairing and the like; but it is highly important that
we should remedy these defects at a time when they can be remedied, and
not in a time of war.

As for the San Francisco business, I am quite prepared to issue the most
solemn possible warning to our people as to the effect of such a fatuous pol-
icy of insult and injury. I have been rather inclined to think I would issue
such a warning in my message to Congress this year; and I have felt that
putting my warning in one part of my message would strengthen the earnest
appeal I shall put in another part that we should do everything possible to
strengthen our army and navy. I had a letter from Ian Hamilton the other
day, and I could see that he evidently feels we shall have war with Japan,
and evidently feels we shall be beaten.

We are so delighted about Edith’s engagement. 3 Will you hand her the
enclosed note? I am concerned to learn that you have not been well; thank
Heaven you seem to be getting all right! Ever yours

4379 ' TO TRUMAN HANDY NEWBERRY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 24, 1907

My dear Mr. Newberry: I have read Admiral Manney’s report 1 carefully
and I return it to be considered by the War Board. Some of the suggestions
it contains may be wise, but I am struck by its extreme folly in its general
propositions. If the Admiral’s position is correct, then under no circum-
stances can the navy of the United States ever go into the Pacific, in which
case it is unnecessary for the Admiral to take any thought about the matter
at all, for Japan could in the event of hostilities seize Alaska, Hawaii, or the
Philip pines, or all three, at her leisure. Not an argument which the Admiral
advances of any kind applies in the slightest degree as against sending the
fleet to the Pacific m time of peace, save as it applies with much greater force

2 This plan was not adopted

* Root’s daughter, Edith, had become engaged to Ulysses S. Grant, III.

1 The report was written by Rear Admiral Henry Newman Manney while he was

on special duty in the Navy Department.

7 2 5

as against sending the fleet to the Pacific in time of war. This reduces the
argument to a simple absurdity. The logical outcome of the Admiral’s propo-
sition would be to give up not only Alaska, the Philippines and Hawaii, but
the fleet also, as well as the Panama Canal and Porto Rico, and to confine
ourselves to coast fortifications.

The fleet is not now going to the Pacific as a war measure; but if there
is the slightest doubt of the expediency of sending it there for military rea-
sons, then it becomes imperative that it be sent there in peace and not in
war — unless we are prepared definitely to take the ground that we never
intend to send it to the Pacific at all, in which case, as I have said above, we
should abandon every position of ours in the Pacific Ocean that is not co-
terminous with our own territory. Sincerely yours

4380 • TO WILLIAM SHEFFIELD COWLES Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 24, 1907

Dear Will: Is Admiral Manney a lunatic^ He has sent me some thoughts on
the Japanese and on our fleet going to the Pacific which really would do dis-
credit to an outpatient of Bedlam. Ever yours

4381 • TO HERMANN SPECK VON STERNBERG Roosevelt MsS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 24, 1907

Dear Speck: I am greatly interested in your letter and it gives me so much
food for thought that I shall confidentially show it to Root. If this summer
you pass anywhere near New York, do come out to see me, for I should
much like to go over this whole situation with great care with you.

By the way, I believe that one reason why so many veterans of the Jap-
anese army are to be found in Mexico, Hawaii, and elsewhere is simply that
they have found that a return to the humdrum, hard-working conditions of
peace would be intolerable after the excitement they have experienced. I
think it is this feeling and no deep-laid machination of the Japanese Govern-
ment that is responsible for their appearance in the regions referred to.

With warm regards to the Baroness, and hearty thanks for your repeated
and highly valued acts of kindness, believe me, Faithfully yours

4382 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 2 6 , 1907

Dear Will: I have your letter of the 23rd. While under no circumstances
would I have advised you to take the position you have taken in refusing to
compromise with Foraker on the lines that the local politicians want, yet,
now that you have taken it, I wish to say that I count it as just one of those
fine and manly things which I would naturally expect from you, and I be-

726

lieve you are emphatically right. 1 There is only one sentence in your letter
that I a little regret and wish that you would alter if possible, and that is the
sentence in which you say that “It may be quite true that a Senator must act
on his own conscience,” &c. I understand entirely what you mean, but in-
genious scoundrels of the Evening Post variety would seize upon this sen-
tence to announce that you were against returning a man to power who
acted conscientiously against the popular wish of the moment. As a matter
of fact, I know no man in public life who would be prompter than you to
follow his own conscience without regard to the fact whether it hurt his
future or not, while I am certain that Foraker would never for a moment
follow what he is pleased to call his conscience unless he thought it would
be to his own advantage. Don’t let Vorys publish the letter with that sen-
tence in it. 2 You can alter it with ease by making it apply to this special case
of the rate bill instead of laying it down as a general rule. You can say, for
instance, that no man more heartily believes than you do in a Senator acting
in accordance with the dictates of his conscience, but where, as in this case,
the Senator acts so as to outrage the consciences of all the best men, where
he shows himself to be the tool of unscrupulous corporate wealth, and to
be against not only the real interests of the people but the real interests of
property, you decline to allow what you believe to be the wholly fictitious
plea of conscience from preventing the people of Ohio from putting in his
place some thoroly upright man whose conscience can be depended upon to
make him act as fearless and upright men like to see their public servants act.

If you are not to be President I should like to see you Chief Justice; but
if the chance of being either does not come, then I should indeed like to see
you Senator from Ohio, and should earnestly wish that we might meet as
colleagues! I shall go all over this when I see you next month Ever yours

[Handwritten] The Evening Post and Boston Herald have always at-
tacked Lodge (falsely) for being too willing to compromise with bosses,
they are now attacking Lodge for supporting you, and praising Crane for
opposing you, in your attitude of refusing to compromise with Foraker.

4383 • TO MELVILLE ELIJAH STONE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 26, 1907

My dear Mr. Stone: Of course if you have other matters to see me about I
shall be glad to arrange to see you.

I am glad you are to send a man to Tokyo who will do his best to prevent
any aggravation of the already existing irritation among the Japanese, and
who perhaps can gain some information of the real designs of the Japanese

‘Taft’s behavior ■was not only right, it was successful. On July 30 the state central
committee, controlled by Vorys, Brown, and Cox, endorsed Taft for President and
refused to endorse Foraker for senator.

*The letter was not published.

727

statesmen. Our own purpose is genuinely to keep the peace, and there exists
literally no possible ground for hostile action against us by Japan. The con-
duct of certain people in San Francisco, and above all of certain yellow
newspapers in San Francisco and elsewhere, has been outrageous. Such con-
duct undoubtedly tends to excite hostile feeling in Japan, but it in no way
or shape affords justification for hostile action by Japan. I shall not believe
until I have to, that such hostile action is contemplated as your correspond-
ent suggests; but most assuredly I shall do my best to keep the nation pre-
pared for every emergency.

Are you a friend of Senator Hale? If so, you ought to tell him of the
information you have, and point out that the whole chance of war, if Japan
has any such intention as your correspondent thinks, hinges upon the Japa-
nese belief in our naval preparedness. There will be no war if they know that
we are amply prepared. I think I have gone too far in yielding to Senator
Hale as Chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee. I did it because by
coming to an agreement, or at least by avoiding an open rupture with him,
I could, after all, keep on with the upbuilding of the navy. When I came in
as President, under Hale’s lead the policy of completely stopping the further
building up of the navy had been inaugurated. Not a ship had been provided
for in the preceding session of Congress. We have peace now, and the chance
of peace in the future, only because I secured the reversal of this policy by
Congress. This is one of the things which for obvious reasons it is possible
to talk about in public only cautiously; but Senator Hale should be made to
understand that in his extreme anxiety for peace and in his extreme animosity
to the navy and army lie the chief dangers of a warlike future for this coun-
try. Sincerely yours

4384 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 26, 1907

Dear Elihu: I objected strongly to your giving those lectures at Yale. 1 1 now
wish to state that, having read them with care and with constantly growing
delight, I am convinced that I was wholly in error. It was very hard on you
to have to take the time to do the work necessary to their preparation — for
with your nature it is impossible for you to neglect any part of your work
in order to do some other part, and therefore the payment is made by you
personally, and not at the expense of the work you are doing. But in this
case I think that the achievement fully justified the sacrifice. I try to speak
with historic impartiality when I say that I can hardly imagine a better thing
for the country than to have one of the two or three most prominent men —

1 Root had given four lectures during the previous May which were published in

1907 by the Yale University Press under the title, “The Citizen’s Part in Government.”

They are included m Root’s Addresses on Government and Citizenship (Cambridge,

Massachusetts, 1916), pp. 1-76.

728

and perhaps without any exception the greatest man — in public life, in
public position, address to the whole body of cultivated people such a group
of really lofty essays as these. I do not quite know any other essays with
which they can legitimately be compared. You quote some of the best Eng-
lishmen who are publicists as well as public men, Morley and Lecky, for
instance; but, my dear Elihu, these men in no shape or way compare with
you. They cannot write what is as valuable as that which you write, because
they have not your reputation, your record of active and successful service
in the highest and most difficult positions. These essays show not only a
thoro understanding of the situation, past and present; not only a lofty ideal-
ism and a remarkable insight and power of expression; but also the robust,
healthy common sense which is, oh 1 so often, lacking in books of this kind.

I particularly like your closing quotation from Lecky, by the way. It is
not as good as your own words, but it is very good, and it ought to bring
some sense of shame to the creatures of the New York Nation , Boston Her-
ald, Springfield Republican type, who would be quite regardless of any at-
tack upon their utter lack of patriotism by an American, but who worship
the Lecky type of Englishman, and who therefore ought to realize their own
shortcomings when they compare them with the standard he sets up.

These lectures would be good if written by anyone, but they acquire
their peculiar merit because they are written by the greatest Secretary of
State, the greatest Secretary of War we have ever had — and here, again, I
believe I am speaking with historic impartiality. Ever yours

P.S. I enclose you another confidential communication re the Japanese
situation.

P.P.S. I also enclose a letter from Baron Kaneko, which explains itself. I
like Kaneko, and he is a good fellow. But he is a fox, and a Japanese fox at
that. He recapitulates all the causes of complaint.

Now, there are two sides to this question. In the first place our people
w r antonly and foolishly insult the Japanese in San Francisco. Everything we
can do must be done to remedy the wrongs complained of. We have already
acted, and can show that we have acted, about the riotous assault upon the
Japanese restaurants. I am only waiting to hear from you to take any further
action on the subject of the last discrimination about the Japanese employ-
ment agencies. Shall I direct a suit to be brought so that it may be tested m
court? 2 As you know, we now have plenty of troops in the neighborhood of
San Francisco, so that in the event of riot we can interfere effectively should
the State and municipal authorities be unable or unwilling to afford the pro-
tection which we are bound to give the Japanese.

The other side of the matter is that nothing that has been done affords

3 No suit was brought, but Bonaparte, following a suggestion of Root, directed
United States Attorney Devlin to intercede in behalf of the Japanese. Devlin diplo-
matically persuaded the Board of Police Commissioners, m December, to grant
licenses to the Japanese

7 2 9

the slightest justification or excuse for the Japanese thinking of war. Un-
doubtedly these irritating articles in the newspapers and irritating actions
may arouse a bitter feeling in Japan which will make the Japanese people
feel hostile to us and predispose them to war should the occasion arise. But
not so much as a shadow of pretext exists for going to war. If the Japanese
attack us now, as the German, English and French authorities evidently think
that they will, it will be nakedly because they wish the Philippines and Ha-
waii — or, as their heads seem to be swollen to a marvelous degree, it is pos-
sible they may wish Alaska. I do not think they will attack us. I think these
foreign observers are in error. But there is enough uncertainty to make it
evident that we should be very much on our guard and should be ready for
anything that comes.

Will you return Mr Kaneko’s letter^ 5 After I have seen you and we
have talked over what it is well to say, I may answer him.

4385 • TO WILLARD HERBERT BROWNSON Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, July 26, 1907

My dear Admiral: Many thanks for your letter I would like thru you to
congratulate Admiral Thomas and especially the officers and crew of the
Georgia upon the way m which without a moment’s delay the ship went
back to her work. The whole navy is to be congratulated at the spirit shown
by the officers and enlisted men on board the Georgia in this instance, and
on board the Missouri and T exas m the other instance to which you refer.

Confidential Is there any way in which we can hurry up the building of
our big battleships^ Of course any inquiry about this must be very quiet.
Moreover, would it be possible to have an inquiry started by which I should
ascertain how soon it would be possible in case of dire emergency to build
new battleships 11 What I want to know is whether, if a war was started, we
could build battleships during the course of a year or eighteen months, so
that if the war lasted that length of time we could begin to have ships take
the place of those we should lose. In the improbable event of hostilities with
Japan, for instance, it might turn out that the difficulty would be to get the
Japanese to engage. This might not be the difficulty at all; but the German
and English experts evidently believe that in the event of war, which they
(as I hope and believe, wrongly) think inevitable, the Japanese would at
first avoid a general engagement and trust to torpedo attacks and the like,
and the long distance from our base, gradually to wear our fleet down. Under
such circumstances I should like to know whether we could not ourselves
play a waiting game by taking advantage of the delay and of our enormous
wealth to build up the fleet.

I would also like information as to the amount of powder, projectiles, and
so forth, we need and have on hand. Sincerely yours

730

43^6 * TO ALFRED HENRY LEWIS

Personal

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, July 27, 1907

My dear Lewis: It was very good of you to send me that letter and I am
much interested. I have been inclined to thmk that Hagerman was merely a
fool, but I grow less and less confident, for it looks to me as if he and those
behind him were surely knaves. 1 I had been very much discontented with
the way thihgs were running in New Mexico, and was informed that young
Hagerman (who is a Cornell man and had been Secretary of Legation at St
Petersburg, but whose father had a big ranch in New Mexico) was just the
type of man for the position of Governor. I put him in. After a little while
he got into an awful quarrel with the people down there. Some of those he
quarreled with were, I think, bad men. Others I am inclined to think were
decent men. In any event, in the course of his quarrel, and apparently to
solidify himself with certain big interests, he consummated a swindling land
transaction with a man named Hopewell, doing the very kind of thing which
made me determine that I could not longer continue his predecessor in office.
I accordingly asked for his resignation. I thought him an honest but foolish
man, altho I had always heard that his father had a shady side to his charac-
ter. The extraordinary interest taken in his retention, however, has made me
believe that probably there are a lot of . . . big financial interests who ex-
pected to profit by what he did and who have been nonplussed by his fate.
That the elder Hagerman did crooked things in the old days, I have no
doubt.

When I turned Hagerman out I made up my mind that I would appoint
a man who was absolutely straight and yet a real westerner. I accordingly
appointed George Curry. You can find out all about him from Bat Masterson,
as he was one of Bat’s deputies in the old days at Dodge City. Curry has been
Chief of Police in Manila and Governor of the Province of Samar, and has
made an excellent record. He was a captain in my regiment — as game a man
as ever drew a gun, and, I firmly believe, an absolutely straight man.

Again thanking you, believe me, Sincerely yours

4387 * TO HERBERT E. MILES Roosevelt MsS.

Private Oyster Bay, July 29, 1907

My dear Mr. Miles : I thank you heartily for your letter of the 26th and am
greatly interested in the clipping of the interview you enclosed. By the end
of November or early in December I shall expect to see you in Washington.
I then want to get hold of the leaders m Congress and see what we can ac-
complish about a tariff commission.

I want to sincerely thank you for the way you have observed the pro-
prieties in connection with our interviews. The result is that I shall be more

1 See Numbers 4302, 4394.

73 1

than glad to see you at any time and talk with you with the utmost freedom,
not only in connection with what I believe ought to be done, but, what is
more important, as to what I can get Congress to do.

With regard, beheve me, Faithfully yours

4388 • to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, July 29, 1907

My dear Mr. Ambassador: I have received your letters of the 18th and 19th
instant. My idea about that Smart Set business is that the letter sent by the
Secretary of the Embassy is sufficient acknowledgment. Once before we got
into trouble thru Mr. Loeb’s simply not understanding, most naturally, that
a publication (the name of which I do not remember) was connected with
Town Topics. I might very possibly have been caught myself, because my
abhorrence of Town T opics was so great that I never saw or had anything
to do with the publication and had no earthly means of connecting it with
any other. I actually should not have known that this Smart Set had any-
thing to do with it if Mr. Loeb, who has learned by the above experience,
had not told me.

I had not even seen the attacks about your “ostentation” in giving a great
reception to Americans on the Fourth of July. I should say there could be
no more harmless type of assault As for the alleged difficulty with the Con-
sul General, I had seen some allusion to it but had not paid it a second
thought.

It is a very serious burden for you to have to make so many speeches,
but I quite agree with you as to the necessity of making them, and especially
as to the advisability of getting people together at just such affairs as those
in which the Harvard and Yale men are interested. It brings the right classes
of Englishmen and Americans in touch.

I look forward to seeing the Bishop of London and shall of course enter-
tain him.

As for the question of the immunity of private property at sea, I hold to
our traditional American view, but in rather tepid fashion, and I am as-
tounded at what you tell me Choate said. 1 Is it worth my while to call the
matter to the attention of either Root or Choate 5

It is interesting to me to see how closely you and I agree on all important
questions. In this Newfoundland business I quite take your view. I have never
felt that the matter was of such vital importance to us, or that our rights

1 In an address to the Hague Conference, Choate had argued for the exemption from
capture at sea of all private property not clearly contraband of war. Root had
instructed the United States delegates to “maintain the traditional policy of the
United States regarding the immunity of private property of belligerents at sea,” but
the opposition of England and Russia prevented the conference from adopting this
point of view in any of its conventions.

were so clear, that we could afford to take an extreme position in reference
to it — such a position as we took on the Alaska boundary business, for in-
stance. Therefore, as I hold precisely your views on arbitration — namely,
that tho it is superior as a rule to war, it is a method which has peculiar at-
tractions for the side that is wrong — I felt that this was properly a case in
which we could afford to give this initial advantage to England; in other
words, while I think England is clearly wrong in the controversy, as a whole
I do not think our position is on all points so strong, and above all I do not
think the matter of such importance, as to warrant our failing ourselves to
propose arbitration. I do not want to jeopardize bigger things elsewhere by
insisting on our rights here up to the point of bringing ourselves face to face
with some very uncomfortable difficulty.

There has been a gross miscarriage of justice, to my mind, out in Idaho,
in the acquittal of Haywood. I suppose the jury was terrorized, but it is not
a pleasant matter from my standpoint.

Mrs. Roosevelt has just received a most beautiful silver bowl from Mrs.
Reid. It is very, very handsome. The only thing I feel is that it makes the
house look a little out of character! Do tell Mrs. Reid how much we both
appreciate the gift, and especially the thoughtful friendliness that lay behind
it. Sincerely yours

4389 • TO WILLIAM H. H. LLEWELLYN Roosevelt M.SS.

Personal Oyster Bay, July 29, 1907

My dear Major: I have your letter of the 23 d, with enclosures. I am sorry
to say that what McHarg reported about Raynolds has in two most important
respects been substantiated by outside evidence. It appears that Raynolds ap-
pointed as Attorney General, Pritchard, the very man on whose recommen-
dation Hagerman took the action for which I removed Hagerman; and, what
is still more extraordinary, that he appointed to office, Hopewell, the very
man on whose behalf Hagerman had committed the deed for which I re-
moved him. 1 Accordingly, on July 27th I removed Raynolds. This action on
Raynolds’ part has been to me wholly inexplicable, save on the ground that
he thought that I was really removing Hagerman for other reasons than those
I gave; that I was simply trying to get rid of Hagerman, and advancing his
action as an excuse, and that I would not similarly punish other men who are
guilty of similar actions. Raynolds and all other officials in the Territory
would do well to get this idea out of their heads immediately. Hagerman’s
action in the case for which I removed him was to my mind inexplicable,
save on the theory that he was either so foolish as to be unfit for his position,
or else dishonest. The action of himself and of various rich men behind him

1 See Numbers 4302, 4394.

733

since his removal has convinced me that, wittingly or unwittingly, he was
the tool of powerful corrupt interests, and that it was imperative to remove
him from office. But of course I shall punish in just the same way every man
who commits a similar offense.

I am simply astounded at Raynolds’ conduct. I expect to see Curry in a
day or two and shall tell him substantially what I have here written. Under
the peculiar circumstances of the case it is absolutely essential that the con-
duct of my appointees in New Mexico shall be free not merely from mis-
conduct, but from anything that looks like misconduct. It is unpardonable
for Raynolds to have quibbled in any way as to affording the representative
of the Department of Justice the fullest information. McHarg is an excellent
man, and if he is prejudiced, the prejudice is due to just such actions as this
by Raynolds. Sincerely yours

4390 • TO TRUMAN HANDY NEWBERRY Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, July 30, 1907

My dear Newberry: I herewith return those two reports. They seem to me
to be excellent. I approve entirely of the action you have taken upon them.
I especially approve of the proposition to have more sea-going officers in
charge of the boys. 1 We do not wish our Military and Naval Academies to
be merely high-grade polytechnic schools. We want them to be training
schools for officers. Personally, I greatly wish it were possible to have the
boys sent to the academy younger, and have a year’s sea service as midship-
men of the old type sandwiched in in the middle of their course, or even
sandwiched in twice, leaving but three years’ course ashore. I am glad that
navigation is to be made more practical. I especially approve of the changes
to be made in the study of mathematics in order to simplify the work of the
midshipmen and to provide that all examples and all practical work should
so far as possible be founded on problems actually arising in engineering,
ordnance, and electricity. I am glad that the new set of textbooks is to be
provided with this end in view. Sincerely yours

P.S. I have your letter of the 30th, with enclosures. As to Senator Hale,
if he were actuated by a sinister desire to bring on trouble with Japan and
to impair the efficiency of the United States Navy, he would be following
exactly the course he is now following. The fleet is to go to the Pacific. You
will submit to me as soon as you reasonably can the alternative plans on
which you are working. Let us also find out what the extra expense will be
for each plan.

1 This proposal had first been made by the Board of Visitors of the Naval Academy
who recommended that officers replace civilian instructors m all departments except
modem languages.

734

439 1 ' T0 WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

Personal

Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, July 30, 1907

My dear White. First, about the Taft business. I have been puzzled by pre-
cisely the experiences you have met with. Of course there are men who will
say just what you state Senator Curtis said. In Kansas, however, rather curi-
ously, my experience with Curtis, Long, and all the others of both sides
have led me to understand that the State was going to be all right; was going
to be straight out for Taft; and that the same was true of Nebraska. As for
Taft, you know exactly my feeling. I am well aware that the American
people does its own thinking, and even if it likes a man has not the slightest
intention of permitting that man to transfer the liking to someone else. I am
well aware that nothing would more certainly ruin Taft’s chances than to
have it supposed that I was trying to dictate his nomination. On the other
hand, it is preposterously absurd to say that I have not the right to have my
choice as regards the candidates for the Presidency, and that it is not my
duty to try to exercise that choice in favor of the man who will carry out
the governmental principles in which I believe with all my heart and soul.
I am quite sincere when I say that I am not trying to dictate the choice of
anyone, and that I stand for the kind of man rather than any particular man.
But it is also true that of the men available for President it would seem to me
that Taft comes nearer than anyone else to being just the man who ought to
be President. There are some good reasons which could be advanced to show
that Root would be a better President than Taft, or me, or anyone else I
know. I could not express too highly my feeling for him. But at present it
does not seem to me that there would be much chance of nominating or
electing him, and therefore I do not consider him in the running. On the
other hand, Taft, in point of courage, sagacity, inflexible uprightness and
disinterestedness, and wide acquaintance with governmental problems, seems
to me to stand above any other man who has yet been named. Take Gover-
nor Hughes, for instance. Hughes has been a good Governor. I think he
would make a good President. But he does not begin to compare with Taft,
either morally, intellectually, or in knowledge of public problems. The re-
actionaries, the big capitalists, for whom the Sun and Harper’s Weekly and
the Evening Post speak, and who in curious ways control such a nominally
populistic paper as the New York Press, would all prefer Hughes because
they would hope that his unfamiliarity with the needs of the country as a
whole, and his lawyer-like conservatism, would make him a President like
Cleveland instead of a President like me. And of course Cleveland, because
of his defects no less than for his good qualities, represents to the Wall
Street type of men almost the ideal President. Moreover, the difference be-
tween Hughes and Taft was illustrated by a remark Hughes made to a New
York offlcial the other day, when he said that his great ambition was to get
thru the Governorship without being under obligations to anyone. Taft’s

735

great ambition when in office is to do the job in the best way it can possibly
be done, and he simply never thinks as to whether he is under obligations to
anyone or whether anyone is under obligations to him. He will help Root
or me, or get Root or me to help him; or appeal to Lodge or Long or
Kittredge 1 for help, without the slightest thought excepting for the work
he is on. In other words, one man’s chief concern is himself, and the other
man’s chief concern is to do well the job at which he is working.

The same reasons that influence me for Taft against Hughes, both being
good men, apply with the necessary changes and with varying force in any
comparison between Taft and anyone else who has been put up. Under such
circumstances it seems to me, as things stand at this moment, that Taft is the
best man to nominate. But while I can write this to you purely confidentially
and not to be shown to anyone else, I cannot make it public. While I have
a right to have my choice, my chief business is not to nominate the President
but to try to do my own work as President for the next eighteen months,
and this is a big enough job by itself. I do not want to get into a row with
any of the other candidates if I can legitimately keep out of it. I have again
and again and again repeated what I said the night after election. It may be
that I shall have to repeat it again, but it does not seem to me that the pres-
ent moment is opportune. For instance, Taft’s friends in the West say to me
that they wish I would repeat my statement, because it would make men
come out for Taft who still cling to me. But Taft’s friends in New York
believe that if I repeated that statement too often, the result would be that
we should have a New York delegation solidly anti-Taft — probably for
Hughes, possibly for Knox. In the Southern States many of the Taft people
have told me that they wanted me to keep clear for the moment because any
further repetition of what I had said might result in the delegations being
captured definitely away from Taft. All of this, let me repeat, is for your
own eye only; but I should like to go over it with you at length here in
person.

Now for the next, and far more important, part of your letter. You puzzle
me more than I can say. I should like to consult the Attorney General before
giving you a definite answer. I can say now that I will see you with Bona-
parte at once if you come on. I am very doubtful whether Borah ought to
come on . 2 As you know, I have incurred the bitterest attacks, not merely

1 Chester I. Long, senator from Kansas, and Alfred B. Kittredge, senator from South
Dakota, both powerful figures in Republican party organization.

* In a recent visit to White, Borah had protested his innocence in the land frauds of
the Barber Lumber Company, claiming that his indictment had been the work of his
political rival, the Idaho district attorney, Ruick. White agreed to intercede with the
President for the senator; see White, Autobiography, pp. 374-375.

On receiving Roosevelt’s letter, White, accompanied by C. P. Connolly, a Mon-
tana lawyer and journalist whose judgment Roosevelt trusted, immediately came
East They won the consent of Roosevelt and Bonaparte for an immediate trial for
Borah. Ruick’s objection to an immediate trial, sustaining, as it did, the opinions of
Davis, White and Connolly, convinced Roosevelt that “Ruick has been simply playing

736

from the socialist and anarchist crowd, but from those men of predatory
wealth who prefer socialists and anarchists to my style of conservatism; and
I have incurred these attacks because of what I did in trying to back up the
party of law and order, of elementary civilization, in Idaho, against the thugs
and murderers who have found their typical representation m Moyers and
Haywoods, in Pettibones and Debs. I sent Taft out to speak for Gooding
last year. I took the first opportunity to range myself definitely publicly on
behalf of the action that Borah was taking. Now, as regards Borah’s own
guilt, you already know what the Attorney General thinks. I have been
consulting him recently about the procedure. We have on our own motion
put over the case until next winter, against the protest of Ruick. It seems to
me, with my present knowledge, and subject of course to changing my mind
if new facts are brought before me, that it would be a bad thing from every
standpoint not to let the case be tried. Moreover, it seems to me that to have
Borah come on here in person to meet the Attorney General and myself
would create a most undesirable impression and would give an opportunity
to the newspapers wholly to misrepresent the actual condition of affairs. I
am therefore inclined to think that if you could come on yourself, with
some good lawyer competent to speak for Borah — and there must be plenty
such in Idaho — the object we have in view would be obtained. I have ac-
cordingly wired you to know if you could not bring on such lawyer to meet
me here at Oyster Bay with Bonaparte on August 9th. Bonaparte and I will
go over the whole matter with you and with him.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. White and to both babies.

I particularly want you to come on so that I can see you and go over
both of the above things together. Could not you get Connolly to come on^
Faithfully yours

4392 • TO EDITH GREENOUGH WENDELL Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, July 30, 1907

My dear Mrs Wendell 1 1 am greatly obliged to you for the beautiful books.
By George, it is a pleasure to see such work done in America! Indeed, when
I get the chance I shall certainly ask you to take me around to the Merry-
mount Press. What remarkable work Updike is doing! 2

It was such a pleasure to see you down here. All I regretted was that
Barrett was not along.

a sharp, clever, tricky game” (Roosevelt to Bonaparte, August 12, 1907, Roosevelt
Mss.) . For the origins of the quarrel between Borah and Ruick, see C. P. Connolly’s
article on Idaho politics m Collier 1 s, 40 19-20 (December 7, 1907)

1 Wife of Barrett Wendell

*He was indeed. Daniel Berkeley Updike and his Merrymount Press in Boston
were the two great influences in lifting the type faces of American printers m die
first half of this century.

737

Do you recollect my speaking to you about the remarkable Venetian
Fifteenth Century Livy, and saying I did not think we had any modern
printing that compared with it! Upon my word I think that Updike’s Taci-
tus runs it close. If I remember aright, however, there was a little more
spacing between the lines of the Livy, so that it gave a clearer look to the
page. Faithfully yams

4393 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, July 31, 1907

Dear Elihu : The enclosed communications from the Japanese Chamber of
Commerce explain themselves So do the two enclosed copies of letters from
Hale to Newberry and from Newberry to Hale. Of course I shall tolerate
no control by an individual Senator or Congressman of the movements of
the fleet. 1 Newberry, you will notice, very properly says nothing about the
plan to send the fleet to the Pacific. I do not think it worth while to say any-
thing to Hale about it. He is a physical coward, the consistent enemy of the
Navy, and worse than lukewarm about the country. It seems to me that it is
useless to communicate with him. Ever yours

P.S. I do not know whether Adee sent you a letter such as that he sent
me and which I enclose.

I wrote you some time ago that I was ready to order any action taken
by the Federal authorities that you thought wise in connection with this
behavior by the San Francisco police people in refusing to grant certificates
to the Japanese. We can undertake a suit to have the matter tested.

Will you also look over the enclosed ? I am inclined to doubt the wisdom
of sending over those mortars. I do not believe that we are going to have
war. If we have war I do not believe we can hold Manila; and I am inclined
to think that the amount of yelling that would be caused by the transfer
would offset the advantages.

I send you another copy of that Japanese paper, which was sent to me
by the publishers. Their yellow press is quite as bad as ours.

Opposing the plans for the fleet to go to the Pacific, many Eastern journalists and
politicians, some with frantic fear, others with partisan intent, marshaled arguments
against the voyage It would, they asserted, strip the Atlantic Coast of its defenses,
perhaps precipitate war with Japan, needlessly expose the fleet to the possibility of
damage from sea and weather, strain expensive equipment, and both directly and in-
direcdy cost an enormous sum. One Southern editor suggested impeaching Roosevelt
to prevent the voyage, many others, North and South, to no avail, urged Congress to
investigate the cost (which was ultimately $1,619,843 32). For Eugene Hale, leader
of the congressional opponents of the voyage, economy was the principal objective.
Hale, Roosevelt later recalled, “announced that the fleet should not and could not
go because Congress would refuse to appropriate the money ” U I announced in re-
sponse,” he continued, “that I had enough money to take the fleet around to the
Pacific anyhow, that that fleet would certainly go, and that if Congress did not
choose to appropriate enough money to get the fleet back, why, it would stay in the
Pacific. There was no further difficulty about the money.” — Autobiography , Nat. Ed
XX, 540. See also Bailey, Roosevelt and the Japanese-Amencan Crises , pp. 225-227.

738

4394 * T0 ORMSBY MCHARG
Confidential

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, July 31, 1907

My dear Mr. McHarg: I have just seen Governor Curry and had a full talk
with him. 1 If he is not an absolutely straight as well as an absolutely fearless

1 Roosevelt had described for the new governor the complex political situation in
New Mexico. The territorial difficulties had their origin in the jurisdictional
squabbles of the Republican factions of the nineties. At the beginning of the decade,
Thomas Benton Catron had created a powerful organization ■which gave the Re-
publicans control of the hitherto normally Democratic Territory. In the mi d-
mneties, while Catron was the congressional delegate, a group of younger politicians
including W H. H. Llewellyn and Miguel Antonio Otero challenged his leadership.
Their revolt was successful when in 1897 McKmley appointed Otero governor.

For the following nine years Otero was master of New Mexico. Aided by such
capable lieutenants as Llewellyn, Raynolds, Fall, Pritchard, Holm O. Bursum, Frank
A. Hubbell, and Bernard S. Rodey, “the little governor” defeated the attempts of
Catron m Washington and Santa Fe to regain a position of power. Otero further
strengthened his position by ruthlessly eliminatmg any opposition within his own
organization. Nevertheless in 1904 Hubbell, chairman of the party’s central com-
mittee, and Rodey, then the congressional delegate, began to show an annoying
degree of independence When Rodey won election as delegate to Congress by an
overwhelming vote in the 1904 primary, Otero, by a maneuver “as spectacular as
it was scandalous,” substituted William H. Andrews’ name for Rodey’s at the
state nominating convention. At the same time Otero removed Hubbell from his

B and territorial positions. Hubbell and Rodey then organized an “Independent-
bhcan” party but were unable to win enough Republican votes to permit the
Democrats to defeat Andrews.

The appearance of Andrews, a long-time associate of Matt Quay, in New
Mexico is suggestive of the economic aspects of the Territory’s political controversies.
The Otero machine for all its political power lacked financial support.

The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, the corporation dominating New
Mexico’s economic life, favored the Catron element, with which it had long had
cordial relations. Ralph Emerson Twitchell, the road’s attorney in Santa Fe, was
throughout Otero’s administration one of his most active and articulate opponents.
To reinforce their economic power, therefore, Otero and Llewellyn traveled East
in 1901 where they succeeded in obtaining the financial support of several Penn-
sylvania politicians and industrialists. With funds from Pittsburgh and concessions
from the administration at Santa Fe, Andrews, as the representative of the Pennsyl-
vanians, organized the Santa Fe Central Railroad, the Pennsylvania Development
Company, and other timber and mining companies Such aggressive competition
must have troubled the officials of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe and its Wall
Street directors including Paul Morton The railroad was, therefore, undoubtedly
pleased when Hagerman, on replacing Otero in 1906, began to oust the entrenched
machine By the time the Otero crowd in retaliation had succeeded m forcing
Hagerman’s resignation, the Republican party in the Territory was hopelessly split.

Curry appeared to Roosevelt as an ideal man to reunite the party. A Democrat
before he left the Territory ten years before, Curry was the one loyal Roosevelt
man who knew New Mexico well but who was in no way involved in the factional
fights of the Republicans. Before he resigned in 1910 in order to better his shaky
personal finances, Curry had restored a measure of harmony to the Republican
party in the Territory. In 1909 he made Otero territorial treasurer but at the same
time weakened Otero’s grip on the organization enough to permit Catron to be
elected to the United States Senate m 1912. The story of New Mexican politics in
these years is colorfully described by two of the leading participants, Otero and
Twitchell, m Otero, My Nine Years As Governor of the Territory of New Mexico ,
1897-1906 (Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1940) and Twitchell, The Leading Facts of
New Mexican History (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1912), vol. II, ch. xii.

739

man, with sound common sense, then I am woefully out in my judgment. I
have asked him to see you immediately and told him what you were striving
to do, and he at once said that every possible aid should be given you and
the books and records thrown wide open to you, and everything that could
be done would be done. Remember, however, that the factional feeling m
the Territory is very bitter, and that Hagerman as well as his predecessor,
Otero, and their friends will do all they can to prejudice you against every
man who they think is not of their crowd. Strictly for your own information
I enclose you a copy of a letter I have just sent to Major Llewellyn. Curry
tells me that he thinks that Hagerman was personally honest, but that his
father is a crook; and Judge Rodey, formerly of New Mexico and now a
Judge in Porto Rico, tells me the elder Hagerman has been engaged in some
very questionable land transactions in connection with the exchange of
script, this being done with the connivance of the Department. Curry says
that he believes Llewellyn has been entirely honest while in office under me.
The Santa Fe Railroad people were evidently using Hagerman, for they
were red-hot for him and they are trying to oppose Curry in every fashion.
As I say, I believe you can absolutely trust Curry. He thinks it better that
I should not appoint another Rough Rider as Secretary of the Territory, and
as he himself is really a Rough Rider and Democrat (altho a good Roosevelt
man) he thinks I ought to try to get a Republican of some standing. I have
told him to report to me. I call Curry a Democrat. He calls himself a Roose-
velt Republican, and I guess the description is fairly accurate. He told me
that I would receive but one complaint that could justly be made of him. He
is a Southwestemer, without the forehandedness of the Puritan, Dutch or
Scotch type, and he has some small debts. Because of these debts he was most
reluctant to accept the Governorship, and I believe he did it only because
he felt he ought not to go back on his old Colonel. Ordinarily I should not
want to appoint a man in debt to an office under conditions like these, but
Curry is as straight as a string and I greatly err if any kind of pressure could
influence him either to do, or connive at, anything that was wrong.

Of course, treat this letter as well as the enclosed as entirely confidential.
You can show it to Governor Curry, but to no one else except Mr. Garfield
and Mr. Bonaparte. Sincerely yours

P.S. I enclose a memorandum left me by Judge Rodey, of Porto Rico,
formerly Territorial Delegate from New Mexico. I would like to find out
if the elder Hagerman or his company has this great tract of land under
fence, and get such information as you can as to the way it was obtained,
or in other words, as to the substantiation of the story told by Judge Rodey.

Do you know the Southwest? Before you come to any definite decision
as to affairs down there I would greatly like to see you. In fact, if it is pos-
sible I should like, after you have made a preliminary investigation into these
various matters and before you probe the different things to the bottom, to
have you come up and see me. You will then have become acquainted with

740

some of the men down there as to whom I would like to speak to you. There
is a man named Ballard, a Rough Rider and Democrat, from Roswell, a mem-
ber of the present Legislature, who is I believe entirely honest and will tell
you the truth. Would it be possible for you to come back here and see me
as I suggest^ 5

4395 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS

Oyster Bay, August 2, 1907

Dear Bonaparte : Will you read thru the enclosed editorial and Loeb’s mem-
orandum upon it?

I send you herewith a very rough draft of my speech at the laying of
the cornerstone of the Pilgrim Monument at Provincetown on August 20th,
in which I discuss the matter very briefly. Perhaps next Saturday you can
make a fuller statement on the subject when you leave here. Our dishonest
foes (whose names are legion) are apparently making some impression with
their yelling about our not proceeding more often criminally. My own be-
lief is that your proposal of the receivership is the most practical one that
has yet been offered. Do you think you will want us to give you any legisla-
tion to give you additional power in the matter? 1 Perhaps you can make
some emphatic statement after being here as to the scandalous attacks in the
New York Times , Brooklyn Eagle , and similar papers upon me for not hav-
ing interfered in some way, which they do not specify, against Governor
Glenn, of North Carolina. 2 These are the very papers which protest that I
must not take inconsiderate and hasty action. Their position now is appar-
ently that I should have plunged lightheartedly into civil war on my own
initiative. Because I might think that Governor Glenn and the State authori-
ties might disobey orders which the federal courts might issue. I often won-

1 On the advice of Bonaparte, Root, and Taft, Roosevelt deleted the references m his
address to the receivership plan, see No. 4340, note 2. For the full text of the speech,
see American "Problems , Nat. Ed. XVI, 76-85.

2 Governor Robert Brodnax Glenn of North Carolina was having trouble enforcing
a recent state law fixing maximum railroad rates at 2 l A cents per mile State authori-
ties had arrested ticket agents of the Southern Railroad Company and fined the road
$30,000 for violating the law. At the request of the railroad, District Judge Jeter C.
Pritchard had granted a writ of habeas corpus releasmg the imprisoned agents on the
grounds that the penalty provisions of the law violated the section of the Eighth
Amendment of the Constitution prohibitmg excessive fines. Governor Glenn then in-
sisted that a federal court could neither prevent the enforcement of a law before it
was declared unconstitutional nor interfere with criminal proceedings before a
minor state court. He threatened to call a special session of the legislature for the
purpose of depriving the railroad of its right to do business m the state. At the
governor’s instigation, warrants were issued for the arrest of other ticket agents and
of William Wilson Finley, president of the Southern Railroad Again Pritchard issued
writs of habeas corpus. The railroad and the governor were then ready to compro-
mise The railroad agreed to set its rates in accordance with the law and to appeal
its case through the state courts and only then, if necessary, to the federal courts.
Glenn m turn promised to dismiss all pending indictments and prosecutions.

74 1

der whether the professional yellow press is, or can be, any more dishonest
than the papers of this stamp.

Cooley handed me your letter in the Borah matter. I agree with every
word of it. I did not see my way to refusing the request of Gooding 3 and
William Allen White to talk with a representative of Borah. I do not want
to tell Connolly and White in advance, what of course I so strongly feel,
that it is not possible for us in my opinion to show that the action we are
taking and are proposing to take is anything but wise and indeed the only
possible action to take. We have gone just as far as we can with due pro-
priety go in adjourning the case. All I will ask is that you bring down all
the papers you have, so that we shall be armed cap-a-pie to meet the state-
ments that will undoubtedly be made to us by Connolly and White. Ever
yours

P.S. Please return to me the rough draft of my speech at the earliest pos-
sible moment, with your comments.

4396 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 3, 1907

Dear Will: I think that the results of the action in Ohio are already evident
in the most unmistakable and gratifying way. It has had a good effect here in
New York, as is shown by the yells of the Times , Evening Post, Press, and
other papers, who have been industriously booming Hughes. I have always
thought that there was a real danger that Hughes might be used to hurt you,
because the very people who are naturally for you are also apt to be favor-
able (and as I think altogether too favorable) toward Hughes. Having this
in view I wrote a letter to William Allen White, of which I send you a copy.
I will go over it with you next Friday. My belief is that at present things are
moving along well and that there should be no attempt to hurry them over-
much until you come back from the Philippines, 1 * but I also believe that m
your August speeches you should take strong and aggressive ground and
that, if possible, once you should give Foraker a mauling. I would rather
like to maul him myself — but then I would like to maul Hale even more;
for wicked tho Foraker has been, I do not know that he is quite as dangerous
as Hale has shown himself to be in his attitude on the United States navy.
I enclose you a copy of Hale’s letter to Newberry, from which you will
see that he is actually anxious to prevent any repairs for battleships lest by
making the ships more fit there should be an increase of danger of war with
Japan. Hale’s position is quite simple, that individually or nationally it is

3 Governor Goodins of Idaho, like William Allen White, had asked the President to
hear Borah’s side 01 his indictment by Ruick.

1 Taft was to depart m September for the Philippines to open the new Filipino as-

sembly, the first major instrument of self-government for the Islands He was also

to visit Japan as a messenger of good will

742

better to be kicked than to fight, and as he utterly misreads the temper of
this nation and does not realize that if kicked it would fight whether pre-
pared or not, he believed that by keeping it unfit we shall avoid the chance
of a war, whereas the only result would be to lessen the chance of carrying
the war to a successful conclusion.

I understand I am to see you either Friday or Saturday, the 9th or 10th.
It is possible Root may be here Saturday, so why not come out Friday after-
noon and spend the night, when we could talk over everything at length on
Friday evening; and if Root gets here in time you and he could go over
some things together on Saturday before you left. Will Mrs. Taft be with
you^ I hope so. Ever yours

P.S. I find I have sent Hale’s letter to Newberry on to Root, so I am
unable to enclose it to you. I should avoid the tariff until after this congress
has met; if you say “it must be revised soon,” the average fool will instantly
ask “why not now?”

4397 • TO TRUMAN HANDY NEWBERRY Roosevelt MSS.

Confidential Oyster Bay, August 6, 1907

My dear Mr. Newberry: Please return the memorandum to the General
Board with this comment:

I heartily approve of all of it save the last paragraph. If any one lesson
is taught by the Russo-Japanese war, and indeed by naval history generally,
it is that in the effort to protect even two important points a division of force
may mean the failure to protect either and the final loss of the war. Before
the war with Japan the Russian naval authorities took precisely the view now
taken by the General Board, namely: that their interests in the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans were such as to require protection by two battle fleets, one
in each Ocean, each capable of caring for the interests in the region which
it was charged to protect. In consequence the Russians were obliged to wait
until the Japanese had destroyed their Pacific battle fleet, and then to see
them destroy the Atlantic battle fleet when it got out there I do not intend
to run the slightest risk of any such disaster. I do not intend to keep sixteen
battleships in the Pacific, with six and the majority of the armed cruisers in
the Atlantic. As I understand it, the Japanese could put ultimately thirteen
battleships and eleven armored cruisers against the sixteen wt put into the
Pacific. This is not right. I want our fleet to be a unit. If there is war we
must run the risk of raids on the Atlantic coast and accept the inevitable
howl that will come, merely using such monitors and torpedo vessels as are
available, together with any unarmored cruisers, to try to protect the Atlan-
tic coast. When our fleet goes to the Pacific I want every battleship and
armored cruiser that can be sent to go. So far from its being a war measure
to send our fleet there, I regard it as really a peace measure. It will show
other nations what we can do and it will let us ourselves tell what we can

743

do and what the shortcomings that must be remedied are. My idea is prob-
ably merely to send the fleet around the world. But in any event I will not
leave in one ocean a considerable fragment of the fleet, not enough to stand
by itself, but enough to greatly weaken by its absence the remainder of the
fleet. This seems to me elemental.

At the earliest moment I want the full details of the proposed trip, of the
ships that are going and of the ships that will remain behind and of exactly
why in each case the ship remains behind. I want 20 battleships to go if pos-
sible, and ten armored cruisers. 1

I would like Admiral Brownson to see this letter. Sincerely yours

4398 • TO RALPH MONTGOMERY EASLEY Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 10, 1907

My dear Mr. Easley: I am very much imprest with that report of Miss Beeks. 1
There is just one point where I think just criticism can be made. Miss Beeks
should not in any case repeat charges of graft, of bribe taking, unless she is
prepared to make them good. No charge is more easily made nor leaves a
more unpleasant taste in the mouth. It is just as if Miss Beeks should say that
“it was alleged” that the wives of various officials were unchaste. Such an
accusation must never be publicly repeated unless there is an intention to back
up such a statement. I refer particularly to what is stated on page 55. Miss
Beeks says that “there are charges of graft” which are “probably not justi-
fied,” and then repeats stories which she apparently does not regard as justi-
fied but which if published will be taken up by the sensational yellow press as
if she made them on authority. I think all these statements should be struck
out of the published report, but that anything she has found which even
tends to establish graft should be immediately furnished to me and I will have
a prompt and exhaustive inquiry made into it.

Aside from this matter I am greatly imprest with the report. Now, how
do you think I can best proceed to secure a remedy for what she points out
that needs a remedy? When are you going to publish the report? I wish you
would consult Miss Beeks and get her suggestions for me. How would it do
for me to send the report to Goethals and ask him to look carefully over it
and to have the affairs remedied, and state at the same time that six or eight
months hence I expect Miss Beeks to go down again and make another report
and that I am very anxious that improvement shall then be shown? Sincerely
yours

1 The President lowered these figures after learning from Newberry of the poor
condition of four battleships and several cruisers, see Numbers 4399, 4442.

1 Miss Gertrude Beeks had made for the National Civic Federation a thorough and
constructively critical report on the working and living conditions in Panama
Roosevelt forwarded the report, prior to its publication, to Goethals who acted on
Miss Beeks’s recommendations.

744

4399 ' T0 TRUMAN HANDY NEWBERRY

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, August 10, 1907

My dear Mr. Newberry: Your letter makes the situation much clearer than,
the report of the General Board upon which I commented. I am per-
fectly content to have the sixteen battleships go as proposed, with the chance
of the Nebraska and Wisconsin joining them, and the six armored cruisers,
not including the California and South Dakota, to join them at San Francisco.
This would mean that we had in the Pacific, available in the very unlikely
event of need, eighteen battleships and eight armored cruisers — an ample
fleet for any emergency. I would like the advice of Brownson, to whom I will
ask you to show this letter, as to the exact plan to be pursued among those
submitted by Evans, which I herewith return. It seems to me on the whole
- that the best course to follow is to go thru the Straits of Magellan; have
thirty days’ target practice in the Pacific as proposed; then to San Francisco;
then to Puget Sound, and thence to Hawaii, Manila and home by the Suez
Canal. But if Brownson and Evans think it would be better to reverse the
proceedings and go out thru the Suez Canal, having the target practice at
Manila, I should be entirely willing. I note Evans’ statement about the need
for fleet maneuver for some of the vessels before leaving. Can this be ar-
ranged 5 Please ask Admiral Brownson to communicate with me in full on
these various points. Also I should like you to consult with Evans and Brown-
son as to taking certain newspapermen along with the fleet. I think it would
be an advantage to have the fleet written up. This cruise around the world
will be a striking thing. The people I hope will be interested in it, and in no
way can their interest be better stimulated, with better result to the Navy,
than by properly writing it up. But it is absolutely essential to have men
whom we can entirely trust on such a trip, and of course every article they
send must be submitted to the Admiral. Can Brownson and Evans make any
suggestions as to the right men to take along 5 1 suppose we will have to con-
sult the three press associations, but we will take no one of whom we do not
entirely approve. 1 Think over this. Sincerely yours

4400 * TO HENRY LEE HIGGINSON Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 12, 1907

My dear Major Higginson: Many thanks for your letter of the 9th. With it
in the same mail comes a telegram from Paris from Jefferson Levy, and
another from The Ajax Metal Company, of Philadelphia, wildly begging me

1 Of the many articles written by the correspondents who accompanied the battle
fleet, probably the most widely read were those of Franklin Matthews of the New
York Sun. Matthews later published them in two books: With the Battle Fleet (1908),
and Back to Hampton Roads (1909).

745

to “desist”; an anonymous postal card (asking me if I am aware that I have
sent each and every industry in the country to ruin); a letter from Washing-
ton Connor, Mr. Gould’s former broker, to the same effect; a letter from
Mr. Robert Thompson, Jr., beginning “that a panic is about to be caused as
the result of unreasonable attacks on wealth and business” and saymg “if
hard times come they will be due to Rough Rider methods”; a letter from
Mr. G. P. Altenberg, of New York, whom I do not know, which opens by
asking me if it is “right to ruin hundreds of thousands of small investors, old
men, widows and orphans, just to gratify a momentary mob spirit run riot”,
a letter from a Mr. Vinght, also of New York, protesting against the “radical
measures” of my administration, “notably in connection with prosecuting the
Tobacco Trust.” All strike the same note; a note of lunacy. Now, my dear
Major, take your letter; with almost all that you say I agree. But I do not
quite understand some of the points you make. You say that the verdict
against the Standard Oil Company has done great damage , 1 and you advise
me to let the public know that the prosecutions will not be pushed and that
the corporations must understand that they are on their good behavior and
in the future they will be treated according to their deserts. I am sure you
will understand how difficult it would be for me to make such an announce-
ment and defend it against any reasoning man the moment the panic in Wall
Street (or the flurry in Wall Street) was over. I have tried my best not to
rake up any old offenses, but I cannot grant an illegal impunity. If we have
to proceed against anyone it is because he has sinned against the light. As for
the Standard Oil people, they surely had the amplest warning.

But, my dear Major, the same trouble that we have now effects the bourse
in Paris and Berlin and the London stock market. British consols are lower
than ever before; so are British and Canadian railroad securities. It is very
difficult for me to believe that this is due to distrust of my policies, reasonable
or unreasonable. In other words, I do not believe that what I have done has
had any appreciable effect in bringing about the severity of the present situ-
ation. That it has had some effect I think very possible. The most-needed
surgical operation invariably means a temporary period of weakness for the
patient greater than would have been the weakness during that same period
if the operation had not taken place. That some trouble in Wall Street would

'The Standard Oil Company of Indiana, after a six-week trial during which over
three tons of evidence were produced, had been found guilty, in May 1907, by the
federal district court in Chicago, of violating the Elkins Act on 1,462 counts, all
involving secret rates and rebates from the Chicago and Alton Railroad. On August
3> Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, imposing the maximum penalty for this offense,
fined the company $29,240,000 “Landis’s bizarre name, lank foim, and Lmcolnesque
features instantly became famous,” particularly to those who shared the view of the
New York Times that the decision was “a manifestation of that spirit of vindictive
savagery toward corporations that, until recently, possessed the minds of a large
number of . . . persons in high authority”, see Allan Nevins, John D Rockefeller
(New York, 1940), II, 576-577 Within less than a year the decision was reversed.
See No. 4819

746

have occurred anyhow as the result of my actions I think likely; but the
present trouble is world- wide. 2 1 think it is far more due to the San Francisco

2 Roosevelt was substantially correct, the trouble was world-wide. An underlying
cause for the “flurries” m the New York stock market m March and August 1907
was an overexpansion of world-wide credit This international nature of the panic of
1907 differentiated it from the Wall Street crises of 1899, 1901, and 1903, produced, as
they had been, merely from speculation on the New York stock exchanges. Yet be-
cause the overexpansion of credit was not accompanied by industrial and agricultural
overproduction the 1907 panic did not have the disastrous aftereffects of those of
1837, 1873, ^93, and 1929 The crisis in the fall of 1907 was basically a drastic de-
flation of an overexpanded credit and price structure

The sharp expansion of credit and the rapid rise of prices between 1904 and
1907 throughout the world reflected a period of high prosperity. The London
Economist's price index which in 1897 had stood at 1885 rose from 2136 at the end
of 1904 to 2601 m June 1907. A rapid expansion in the volume of trade accompanied
the rise an the price level. Between 1905 and 1906 exports from Great Britain, Ger-
many and the United States increased 14 per cent, 7 per cent, and 10 per cent
respectively and imports rose 8 per cent, 12 per cent, and 12 per cent. By 1907 the
financing of this trade was already putting a strain on the world’s money markets.

The strain was intensified by demands for credit to finance industrial expansion.
In New York, railroads and industrials, encouraged by the rising prices received for
their goods and services, were making heavy calls for new capital despite the in-
creasing shortage of available funds. In 1905 and 1906, $872,000,000 worth of new
bonds, not replacing old issues, were listed on the New York Stock Exchange; and
during the first half of 1907, after the normal demand for bonds had been completely
satiated, the railroads alone issued close to $300,000,000 of short-term high-interest
notes Similar outlays for expansion were made in England and Germany. The need
for funds to pay for the costs of the San Francisco earthquake damage and the
Russo-Japanese War added still another pressure on the international money supply.

As 1907 passed, evidences of the strained condition of the world’s money market
multiplied. Soon after the March flurry on the New York exchange, a break in the
Egyptian and Japanese stock markets was followed by suspension of payments by
the major banks and widespread business failure in both countries. During the sum-
mer, prices on the London and continental stock markets, like those m New York,
dropped heavily, while in the United States several large concerns, including the
Interborough Metropolitan Company and the Westmghouse Electric Company,
went into receivership. Early in October financial crises occurred m Valparaiso,
Chile, and Hamburg, Germany Later that month came the most dangerous break in
the world’s credit structure, the panic in New York

The severity of the American pamc resulted largely from the unsound condi-
tions of the New York trust companies. These companies, in order to avoid the
requirements of the state banking laws — especially the regulation requiring 25 per
cent cash reserves against deposits — had been chartered under a New York law
originally intended for the orgamzation of legal trusts or estates. During the preced-
ing years of prosperity the trust companies had flourished. Many were organized by
speculators who used the deposits to finance their market operations Such men were
little troubled by the usages of sound banking. When the Clearing House Association
had req uir ed the trust companies to carry at least 10 per cent reserves, nearly all of
these institutions resigned from the association, thereby depriving themselves of
financial protection provided by that association In 1907 these compames actually
operated on little more than trust.

This confidence was shattered m mid-October when two of the leading trust
company promoters, Charles W Morse and Auguste Heinze, attempted, with funds
taken from their banks, to comer the copper stocks. They failed, and their failure,
headlined m the metropolitan press, started a run on trust compames with which they
had connections. This m turn created a sudden sharp demand for funds m the over-
extended New York money market On October 23 the Knickerbocker Trust

747

earthquake, to the Russo-Japanese war, to other conditions which I do not
understand but which act thruout the world, than to any kind of action on
my part. I understand entirely that those who suffer at the moment from the
flurry or the panic will not take this view. My correspondents whom I have
quoted to you above are literally in a state of panic, and a condition of panic
means folly raised to the point of craziness, and crazy people do not think,
or at least do not think successfully. I shall not proceed vindictively. I shall
proceed just as cautiously and conservatively as possible; but it is useless to
expect me to abandon a scheme of governmental action which I think essen-

Company closed its doors Money then became virtually unobtainable; call loan rates
rose to 125 per cent, all confidence in credit disappeared. In real panic financial
men called m loans, withdrew funds from banks, and tried to convert securities to
cash

The collapse of the major American money market caused an immediate
financial crisis throughout the United States and threatened the credit structure of
the world The demands of country banks on their New York deposits became
intense Often unable to get funds from the metropolis, many banks m the South and

PRICE AND PRODUCTION FLUCTUATIONS - 1904 - 1908 -

West were obliged to close. At the same time the demands of New York on Euro-
pean gold to meet the crisis in Wall Street were creating the danger of a similar
panic in London and Berlin.

In meeting the crisis, bankers and government officials acted first to restore
confidence by meeting the runs on the trust companies. This was done during the
initial week of the panic by J. P. Morgan and Cortelyou through the use of

748

rial to our future well-being, because causes, operating in London, Berlin and
Paris just as much as in New York, tend to produce trouble in the stock
markets of the world. Sincerely yours

4401 * TO TRUMAN HANDY NEWBERRY Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 14, 1907

My dear Mr. Newberry: Referring to your letter to Mr. Loeb of the 12th, I
think your decision is right. I enclose a letter from Lodge. Of course I do
not know anything about the matter. My judgment would be to pay no heed
whatever to anything except the information of the experts in the Navy De-
partment, to pay no heed to the protests of the Connecticut Senators and
Congressmen on the one hand, nor to the pressure from Massachusetts on
the other. If the Lake boat is considered by our experts inferior, then it ought
not to be built and there ought to be no unnecessary delay in proceeding with
the other boats. If they think that we ought to take one Lake boat and have
the others of the so-called Holland type, then I should do that. 1
When is Secretary Metcalf coming back? Sincerely yours

Treasury funds and the pooled resources of the New York banks (see Numbers 4473,
4484). The next step was to provide cash necessary to carry on normal business
operations and to strengthen the American credit structure This the government
did by making a large bond issue to be used as a basis for both currency and
credit (see Numbers 4503, 4504, 4505).

Once confidence was restored, recovery was rapid. By the fall of 1908 the de-
pression was no longer severe enough to become an issue in the Presidential cam-
paign, and by 1910 rising prices had become a factor m politics. While the demand
for goods declined during the winter and spring of 1908, production dropped to the
1904 level for only a short time and by the end of the year was back to what it had
been m 1906 Prices, especially stock prices, which during the previous three years
tended to rise more rapidly than production, now dropped quickly, but by the
end of 1908 they too were back to 1906 levels. Meanwhile the events of October and
November 1907 had brought about a severe contraction of the overextended credit
and wiped out most of the unsound and speculative loans, jarring the American
credit structure back to normal.

Between the summer of 1907 and the fall of 1908 the major European countries
had made, without the traumatic experience of a panic, a similar readjustment to
the overexpansion of credit and prices of the three previous years. Thus the
Economist's price index fell from a peak of 2601 in June 1907 to 2168 in August
1908 when it began again to move upward. From 1908 to 1914, except for a minor
recession in 1911, was a period of unparalleled prosperity for the United States and
most of Europe.

The most useful surveys of the panic of 1907 still remam Alexander Noyes, Forty
Years of American Finance (New York, 1909), ch. xv, and his “A Year After the
Panic of 1907,” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 23 185-212 (February 1909) O M.
W Sprague, History of Crises under the National Banking System (Washington,
1910), ch. v, the most detailed account, concentrates on the banking aspects of the
1907 crisis. Frederick L. Allen, The Great Fierpont Morgan (New York, 1949), gives
a lively journalistic description of the events in New York during the first week of
the pamc

x The Navy Department, following the recommendations of its experts, awarded
to the Electric Boat Company, successor to the J P. Holland Torpedo Boat Com-
pany, the contract for eight new submarines, double the number of ships then in the

749

44°2 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE

Roosevelt Mss
Oyster Bay, August 14, 1907

Dear Cabot: I have written to the Navy Department about the submarine
business but I am a little at a loss to take decided action until Metcalf returns
to the Department.

Now about the more important matter. I quite agree with what Coolidge 1
says. I do not think that my action, or indeed the conditions here, are the
chief elements in the trouble, for this trouble is acute on the bourses of Paris
and Berlin, and British consols are lower than ever before, while British and
Canadian railway securities have depreciated, altho not as much as our own.
It does not seem reasonable to claim that this is due to my actions. But the
very word “panic” denotes absence of reason; and assuredly we shall be held
responsible for any trouble that may ensue. My Provincetown speech is given
to the press. I would have gone over it with you very gladly if there had been
time. I did go over it -with Root and accepted the only two suggestions he
made. District Attorney French, who strikes me as a good fellow by the way,
read it and heartily approved of it. At the same time if, before I had sent it
out, the present flurry had occurred, it is possible, altho not very probable,
that I would have devised something to say along the line that Mr. Cooley
suggests. I confess, however, it is a very difficult thing to know quite how to
say it. I agree with you thoroly about the undesirability at the moment of
going on with any new suits, but literally the only investigation tending
toward a suit which we have undertaken within the last three months is this
investigation by French and Cooley, the genesis of which you well know. I
think George Meyer is a little inclined to regret that the investigation was
undertaken I quite agree with the views you express in your letter, and I am
inclined to think that French and Cooley take the same views. In any event
nothing is to be done about it until they see me and Bonaparte together in
the latter part of October, and of course I shall be in touch with you.

Coolidge put his finger on the difficulty when he said that it would not
help much for me to announce that no corporation that obeyed the law
would suffer In my Provincetown speech I have said this identical thing.
I have also stated that we are acting in the defense of property. I enclose
you a copy of the speech. I do not see how it can cause legitimate alar m, but
I am well aware that the present alarm is largely illegitimate. Of course show
the speech to no one. Ever yours

United States underwater fleet The eight ships were to be built at the Fore River
yards m Quincy, Massachusetts. Subsequently the department, in part because of the
demands of the Connecticut congressmen, agreed to purchase one submarine from
the Lake Torpedo Boat Company of Bridgeport provided that it would prove equal
to the best boat owned or contracted for by the Umted States.” — Annual Reports of
the Navy Department, 1907, pp 16-19

1 Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Boston financier, Republican, former minister to Fiance,
1892-1893

750

44 ° 3 * TO BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS
Personal

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, August 14, 1907

My dear Mr. Vice-Chancellor .* 1 1 was equally interested in your address and
and in your letter. Of course what I write must be personal and not for publi-
cation, but surely it must be needless to say that I most heartily and entirely
sympathize with your view. Hemphill 2 has many good points and he edits
a clean newspaper; but it is a Bourbon paper, and in an entirely different way
it is as alien to our national life and as useless as the New York Evening Post.
Not only am I half a Southerner by birth, but I am just exactly as much a
Southerner by feeling as I am a Northerner. In other words, I am a good
American. I feel that the South has to a very extraordinary degree the exact
qualities which the North most needs and which would be useful m combat-
ing the growth of certain very unpleasant tendencies in the North. There-
fore I peculiarly regret just what you say, namely: that bondage to a political
tradition which has lost all value should prevent the South from being of real
weight in national life. There are plenty of my policies which really repre-
sent more nearly the principles of the South than of the North. Yet in devel-
oping them I was almost completely cut off from all aid from the South
because of the very attitude which you attack.

I can say quite sincerely that I do not know an educational institution in
the North with which I am on the whole in such hearty sympathy as with
Sewanee University; and there are any number of Southern men with whom
I find myself really m closer agreement than with almost any Northern men.
If there were real freedom for the play of political thought m the South these
men and the forces they represent would possess an incalculable effect in
shaping the policies of the whole country.

With high regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

[Handwritten] Your illustration drawn from the Japanese character was
admirable.

4404 ■ TO HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 1 Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August ij, 1907

My dear Major Higgmson: I thank you for your letter of the 14th. Now for
the final paragraph. I would a thousand times rather punish the sinning officer
than the stockholders of the corporations, but I want you to remember that
it is the corporations themselves who secured in the Elkins law the abolition

1 Benjamin Lawton Wiggins, vice-chancellor of the University of the South, 1893—
1909

a James Calvin Hemphill, editor of the Charleston, South Carolina, News and Courier,
1888-1910, Richmond, Virginia, Trmes-Dispatch , 1910-1911, Charlotte, North Caro-
lina, Observer , 1 91 1 , on the staff of the New York Times , 1912, first vice-president
of the Associated Press, 1909, Bromley Lecturer on Journalism at Yale, 1909-1910.

75 1

of the punishment by imprisonment. 1 Moreover, we find in actual practice
that it is an exceedingly difficult thing to get juries to punish individuals in-
stead of corporations. In the licorice trust case last year the Government did
all it could to get punishment by imprisonment of the presidents of the
corporations concerned. The same jury that convicted the corporations and
punished them by fines acquitted the presidents. 2 It is the public and not we
who are to blame in this matter. Sincerely yours

4405 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, August 15, 1907

My dear Bonaparte: As regards Sheppard I would not pursue the matter any
further. Bisbee has apparently kept silence twenty-three years. He certainly
never made any protest when we appointed Sheppard to his present position. 1
Unless you think to the contrary, please have Sheppard’s appointment made
out.

I think it would be an excellent thing for you to write Higginson with a
view to publication. I have written him four or five different letters, not with
a view to publication, all in answer to various letters he sent me. He is a
trump, but I know no human being who squeals louder and more irrationally
on all kinds and sorts of subjects, but especially when there is a slump in the
stocks.

Now as to the McHarg matter — and I shall be very much obliged if you
show this part of my letter to Cooley. McHarg was here yesterday. He im-
pressed me as a thoroly honest man but hardly big enough to grasp in its
entirety such a delicate and difficult matter as the New Mexican situation. 2

1 Higginson was one of several financiers who had written Roosevelt suggesting that
the government, in its antitrust prosecutions, substitute criminal suits against indi-
viduals for civil suits against corporations. From the point of view of the financier,
criminal prosecutions had decided advantages: first, unlike civil suits they did not
threaten corporate investments, second, they were more difficult for the government
to wnn Not only were juries more reluctant to impose criminal convictions, but,
perhaps more impoitant, prosecutors were inhibited by the “immunity bath” doc-
trines that still protected witnesses m criminal cases.

s The corporations fined were the Mac Andrews and Forbes Company and the J S
Young Company Together these corporations manufactured 85 per cent of the
licorice paste, an essential ingredient for tobacco and snuff, consumed m the United
States Henry L Stimson and Henry Taft m their able presentation of the govern-
ment’s case demonstrated to the court’s satisfaction that these companies m De-
cember 1903 entered into a stock merger for the purpose of monopolizing the lico-
rice paste market and raising the price of that product. They also proved that the
MacAndrews Company, the controlling concern after the merger, made special,
favorable price and marketing arrangements with the American Tobacco Company
and its affiliates, see U. S . v MacAndrews and Forbes Co et. al., 149 Fed. 823(1906),
149 Fed 836 (1907).

1 Sheppard’s effective handling of peonage cases m Florida had aroused the enmity
of such prominent local politicians as Horatio Bisbee, Republican congressman from
Florida, 1877-1879, 1881-1882.

* See No. 4394

75 z

He, however, informed me with great earnestness that to stop at this moment
in the criminal prosecutions might let the men we are after take advantage of
the statute of limitations, and that to stop in some of the civil prosecutions
might mean the cutting of timber on Government land illegally. Accordingly
I told him that, subject to your approval, I desired him to go ahead at once
with all the criminal and civil prosecutions and not to try to make a general
investigation into the character of the public officials in New Mexico. I en-
close a memorandum McHarg gave me. On the second page you will find
that he has made up his mind m advance, and without the slightest knowledge
of Governor Curry, that Governor Curry cannot successfully resist the
influence of the Territorial gang, as he terms it. The mere fact that McHarg
has come to such a hasty judgment shows that we need a man with a cooler
mind to deal with the situation down there. I think the wise thing is to let
Cooley go there two or three months hence when Curry will have seated
himself firmly in the saddle. Then Cooley can consult with Curry and can
get the benefit of the knowledge of McHarg and Gordon, can investigate
anybody and anything he desires, and we shall have a report on which we
shall be able to stand.

Now about Ruick. My judgment would be to pay no heed either to
Borah’s request or to Ruick’s request, but to insist upon an immediate sepa-
rate trial for Borah on grounds of public policy; and m my judgment Ruick
has now put himself in such a position that the public policy not only war-
rants but requires his removal, and I would not have the slightest confidence
in his conduct of any case if he continued in the service. Let me know when
you hear from him and I will get your views and see if we cannot together
patch up between us a statement of the reasons for Ruick’s removal which
will prevent even the more idiotic type of malevolent opponent from mis-
interpreting it.

The Evening Post, Times , Sim, etc., are certain to attack you and to
attack me, and they do not care one whit that the attacks one month repre-
sent the reverse of the reasons they give for the attacks another month. One
month they criticize me for interfering with the rights of the State; the next
month because I do not. One month they criticize you because you are not
active enough and the next month because you are too active. As you say,
the papers which are more or less responsive to the big financial interests of
Wall Street seem to be even more lunatic than Wall Street itself. I am in-
clined to think that m view of the misrepresentations of what you say it
would be well for you when you make a statement to always give it to them
m writing. Then they cannot misquote you or try to put you in a false light.
And I would say as little as possible; your deeds are admirable and speak for
themselves! You need not speak of the suits; they speak! Let me repeat that
I hope you will answer Higginson and will point out, as you suggest, that
when respectable people ask public officers not to execute the law they are
doing precisely what they condemn in an organization like Tammany. I shall

753

send you in a day or two copies of a couple of letters I have written to
anxious correspondents.

I am glad you wrote to Judge Jones as you did. Stiffen him up in every
way. I have not a doubt that the Southern Railroad is deliberately trying to
excuse itself by saying that we refuse to support it.® It might be well to state
publicly once again when a fit occasion arises what our attitude has been.
Sincerely yours

4406 • to david scull Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 16, 1907

My dear President Scull : 1 You have written frankly to me and you are en-
titled to frankness in return. You say you have been a supporter of my course
until within the last few days; but that you have now changed and are an
opponent. You seem to think that your change is due to some change on my
part; but as my attitude now is precisely what it has been for the last six years
it is perfectly obvious that the change is in you. You do not surprise me in
the least when you tell me that many men have experienced such a change.
The very word “panic” denotes a fear so great as to make those who ex-
perience it become for the time being crazy; and when crazy with fear men
both say and do foolish things, and moreover, always seek for someone to
hold responsible for their sufferings — usually without any regard as to
whether he is or is not really responsible. At the time of the flurry m stocks
last March I received hundreds of letters exactly like yours. I am receiving
plenty of letters like it today. These good people are ignorant, as you evi-
dently are, that the trouble we have had here has been paralleled by similar
troubles on the bourses in Berlin and Paris; they are ignorant, as you evi-

3 The Southern Railroad had just come to terms with the state of Alabama about
rate regulation. Alabama, like North Carolina, had passed a law setting maximum
passenger and freight rates A supplementary act declared that the state would revoke
the license of a railroad company that moved a case from a state court to a fedexal
court Both laws were to become effective July i, 1907 In May, at the request of
twelve railroads m the state, District Court Judge Thomas G Jones had enjoined the
state railroad commission and the Attorney General from enforcing both the rate
and licensing laws Despite this injunction the secretary of state for Alabama revoked
the Southern Railroad’s license w r hen that road, on July 30, moved a suit from a state
to the federal court. Rather than become involved m continuing complex legal
battles, the road compromised with the state officials, agreeing to observe the rate
law until the constitutionality of both laws was decided by the courts It also
agreed to ask Jones to modify his injunctions. In October, Jones, after continued
pressure by the roads and by Interstate Commerce Commissioner Clements, re-
luctantly withdrew the injunctions. See No. 4466 and Outlook . , 87 833-835
(December 21, 1907).

1 David Scull, president of the corporation of Bryn Mawr College. A similar letter
was written to Edgar Williams, editor of the Orange, New Jersey, Journal For
Roosevelt’s purpose m writing the two men see No. 4419.

754

dently are, that British consols are now selling lower than ever before in their
history, and that the railway securities in England and Canada have also
fallen, altho not to the same degree as ours. Surely, you can hardly believe
that all this is due to my action in enforcing the law agamst wealthy wrong-
doers. That some trouble has been caused by the action I have taken against
great and powerful malefactors, I have no doubt; and in any such case there
are always people of little faith who at once scream in favor of a continuance
of corruption and dishonesty rather than see any unsettlement of values be-
cause of the enforcement of the principles of honesty. I shall pay no heed
whatever to these people, whose attitude I regard as profoundly foolish and
profoundly immoral. In other words, their attitude is precisely like that of a
man who, having a cancer which can be cured by the use of the knife, never-
theless screams and refuses to submit to an operation because he knows that
there will be temporary pain and discomfort.

You say that there should be “severe proceedings against” and “punish-
ments of” a few prominent financiers. You describe exactly the action I have
been taking. Do you suppose that Mr. Rockefeller is giving out interviews
denouncing me, because of his altruistic devotion to small outsiders ^ 5 Cer-
tainly not, he has been attacking me because he has been hurt; and because
he believes that by working on your fears he can count upon the support of
you and men like you. You protest against my policy of “prosecuting the
railroads where evidences of criminal action on their part is obtained,” on the
ground that, as you say, I have made no effort to show the “limitations” of
my “intended course.” You might just as well ask a district attorney to make
a statement as to the “limitations” of his “intended prosecutions” against
liquor sellers who are guilty of illegal conduct. If people will obey the law
they can count on my domg all I can to further their interests, but I will no
more countenance crimes of greed and cunning by men of property than
crimes of brutality and violence against property. I send you a copy of the
speech I made on this subject last Decoration Day. It is not open to miscon-
struction. Let me in closing point out that when you advocate as you do in
your letter to me a policy of connivance at or condonation of lawbreaking
by men of wealth on my part, you advocate precisely the principles which
have made certain corrupt political organizations in our cities bywords among
the people, and you put yourself upon the level of the politicians who have
controlled them. How you can reconcile such an attitude with that of teach-
ing young Americans respect for law and for proper ideals of justice, I am
wholly unable to understand. But, this being your attitude, you are quite
right m assailing me, for during the closing year and a half of my term I shall
follow precisely the course I have followed during the last six years. I shall
enforce the laws, I shall enforce them against men of vast wealth just exactly
as I enforce them against ordinary criminals, and I shall not flinch from this
course, come weal or come woe. Very truly yours

7 55

4407 ' T0 elihu Root Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram: Official Oyster Bay, August 16, 1907

I have just received the following letter from Taft which seems to me to
meet the situation and I earnestly hope you can persuade Cortez to accept
this view:

“I am pretty confident that if Root will press upon Cortez the wisdom
of carrying out his own suggestion that the boundary business be omitted
altogether from the treaty, that he can induce Cortez and Reyes to consent,
for that would practically be a surrender by Panama at any rate because
Panama is not in possession, has no power to take possession without our aid,
and we would not recognize her right to that addition at any rate. This
method of surrendering the question enables the Panamanians to keep their
face with their people, which they will certainly lose if they appeared in the
treaty expressly to give up national sovereignty over any land. I have tele-
phoned to Bacon to this effect and to, speak to Root about it before Root sees
Cortez. Bacon responded that he did not think Cortez could act because he
thought he was without authority. I am convinced that he is wrong in this
respect and that Root can carry it through, and that Cortez is going to Root
to consult on the subject. Cortez does not want to see me because he thinks
I am for Panama, and he will talk to Root on this point. If you could reach
Root by telephone when this letter reaches you, I think it might be well to
press this view on him. Of course, this ought to be done before he sees
Cortez tomorrow.” 1

1 Since June 1906 the United States, acting on the request of Colombia, had been
trying to obtain an agreement between Colombia and Panama on the following
things Colombian recognition of Panama, Panamanian payment to Colombia of
part of the sum received from the United States as rent for the canal strip,
definition of the boundary in the Jurado region between the two countries. As the
negotiations progressed, the friendly reasonableness of Root and Bacon representing
the Americans and President Reyes and Minister Enrique Cortez representing the
Colombians restored the mutual understanding destroyed m 1903. The Panamanians,
however, weie less reasonable Secure m the knowledge that the United States guar-
anteed their independence, they were reluctant to surrender to Colombia cither any
canal rentals, on which their budget depended, or any territory, for which they had
stronger emotional than legal claims Negotiations were further complicated by the
fact that in Colombia and Panama the incumbent politicians feared with good cause
that a diplomatic retreat on any pomt would give their partisan rivals the key to
power.

Under these trying conditions, while Root was ill during the summer of 1907,
Taft, assisted by the enigmatic Cromwell, persuaded Panama to pay a large indem-
nity in return for recognition by Colombia, provided that the disputed boundary
remained undefined. Cortez, convinced by the argument stated m Roosevelt’s
telegram to Root, accepted this plan, but the Panamanian government, involved m
a close election, failed to act Patiently Root returned to the problem, which he
hoped could be solved by negotiation In 1909, however, a revolution m Colombia
that deposed Reyes destroyed Root’s work. Not for fourteen years was the issue
finally resolved. For a discerning discussion of the negotiations from 1906 through
1909 see Jessup, Root I, 521-527.

756

44° 8 * TO GEORGE CURRY

Roosevelt Mss ,
Oyster Bay, August 17, 1907

My dear Governor: The enclosed letter to Speaker Cannon explains itself. 1
It is enough to show how carefully we shall have to proceed. I do feel that
it is important that you should close Mr. Fall’s connection with your adminis-
tration as early as possible. A great many prominent people are going to be
interested m New Mexican affairs, and Mr. Fall’s very unfortunate remarks at
your inauguration have, I fear, hopelessly impaired his usefulness as Attorney
General. 2 * * * * Faithfully yours

4409 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 17, 1907

My dear Bonaparte: Mr. Sims 1 has just come to see me with a message from
Judge Landis which to my mind completely changes the situation as regards
the possible prosecution of the Chicago & Alton Railroad officials in con-
nection with the Standard Oil rebate cases. Mr. Morrison’s letter to you
stated m substance that by the direction of the Attorney General, in order
to secure the conviction of the real offender, the Standard Oil Company, he
conferred with the attorneys of the different railroads involved and said to
them that if they would furnish the testimony wanted in good faith, and the
witnesses w 7 ho could enlighten the Judge upon the facts, it was not the
intention of the Department of Justice to prosecute them. He asked, there-
fore, that the attention of the court be called to this arrangement in view of
the court’s order that a grand jury be impaneled to hear evidence against the
railroads concerning the same prosecution as regards which they furnished
the evidence. The court having been notified of these facts stated to the
grand jury on August 14th that he had just been informed of this arrange-
ment under which it had «been» agreed that the railroad company was not to
be proceeded against provided it should assist the prosecution in good faith
with evidence and witnesses in the matter then pending. The court added that
this presented a very grave question, “because it is of the utmost importance
that no offender should undeservedly escape from paying the penalty of

1 Cannon had urged Roosevelt not to withdraw the investigators from New Mexico

2 Fall assumed Roosevelt was supporting the Republican machine (see Numbers 4302,

4394) He asked the audience at Curry’s mauguration if the men “like W. H. An-

drew s, who can . . . assist m developing your mines and your industries, must have a

guardian sent from Washington, a special agent of the Interior Department 1 Fellow
citizens, Theodore Roosevelt knows better, and he has sent George Curry to New
Mexico, and the other fellows will go pretty quick 1 ” Special agents McHarg and
Gordon remained m New Mexico, after Fall had resigned under pressure from

Washington.

1 Edwin W. Sims, United States district attorney for Chicago, had replaced Charles
B Morrison as government prosecutor of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana
rebate case.

757

crime on any such plea, as well as that the attorneys for the defendant might
not truthfully charge the Government with bad faith.” The court further
added that some official of the Department of Justice should be charged with
the task of determining the Department’s attitude, and that he should have for
his careful consideration the transcript of the testimony of these railway
agents so that he might intelligently decide whether, under the district at-
torney’s arrangement and the railway company’s performances, the Chicago
& Alton road was entitled to immunity, and that the action or nonaction of
the grand jury must depend entirely upon the conclusions reached as to what
the most perfect good faith required the Government of the United States
to do.

Mr. Sims informs me that, as a matter of fact, and in the judgment both
of himself and of Judge Landis, this arrangement was not carried out in good
faith as far as the witnesses from the traffic department, the (in this case) im-
portant department of the Chicago & Alton, were concerned. He states that
the railroad furnished the written testimony freely and fully, but that the
witnesses from the traffic department obviously did their best to mislead
the court and the jury so as to shield the Standard Oil Company from the
effects of its wrongdoing. So important was their testimony that if accepted
and believed it would have resulted in the acquittal of the Standard; and it is
possible that the Supreme Court may reverse the verdict on this testimony
and the rulings of the court in connection therewith. If such is the case, and
we do not proceed against the Alton, we shall be in an entirely false position.
There is no question that the guilty act has been committed by one of the
two parties, that is by the Standard Oil Company or the Chicago & Alton. As
a matter of fact both are guilty, but we have tried to get at the real criminal
by the testimony of the victimized party. Now if, thru the testimony of
the victimized party, the real criminal escapes, and we hold ourselves es-
topped, in spite of its bad faith, from proceeding against the victimized party,
no one will be punished for the crime, and this is not a result we can accept
if it can be avoided. If an examination of the testimony shall show the cor-
rectness of what Mr. Sims tells me, then I feel clear that we shall be obliged
to state to the court and the Chicago & Alton that the conduct of the wit-
nesses of the latter not having been in good faith precludes us, on grounds of
the highest public policy, from failing to proceed against them. I trust that
you, or some representative whom you may select, will carefully look into
this testimony. It may well be that indictments had better be obtained with
the understanding that if the evidence furnished has not precluded the con-
viction of the Standard Oil Company these indictments will not be pressed,
but that they will be pressed if it is found that the evidence has prevented
this conviction . 2 Sincerely yours

4 After reviewing the testimony, Bonaparte decided that, although some of the evi-
dence was open to criticism, the witnesses had acted in good faith. In the opinion of
the Attorney General the Alton therefore was entitled to immunity because of the
Morrison agreement. With Roosevelt’s approval, Bonaparte on August 20 directed
Sims not to prosecute the railroad.

758

44 10 * TO TRUMAN HANDY NEWBERRY

Roosevelt Mss.
Oyster Bay, August 17, 1907

Dear Newberry: Get that coal business started at once, and unless there is
objection from Admiral Brownson, decide on the itinerary via the Strait of
Magellan. If necessary, we can keep the fleet some little time at San Francisco
and Puget Sound in order to secure more coal. Tell the Bureau of Eqmpment
people that I shall expect them to bend every energy to securing enough coal
to get the ships around to San Francisco. I regard the Bureau of Equipment as
on trial in this matter. If necessary, wire Cowles to return at once and take
up the matter. It would be a very unfortunate thing to have the fleet fail to
start at the proper time now. The Bureau of Equipment, I suppose, has al-
ready begun action, and even as it is, it is seventy days before the fleet starts.

I think your suggestion about having one first-class man, such as Cal
O’Laughlin or Dick Oulahan, to represent all the newspapers, is excellent.
My own choice would be James B. Connolly, the writer of the sea stories.
I’ll go over this with you. Sincerely yours

4411 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 21, 1907

Dear Will: Will you thank Cromwell for me for what he has done and say
that after reading your letter I am very grateful to him and feel that he has
rendered a real service to the nation 5 1 I think that he puts just the right
construction upon our action when he states that there is an equitable lien
over the entire Republic for the debts of Colombia, and that as the Canal
Zone is the most valuable part of the Republic, it is proper for us to pay one
half of the debt which Colombia was justified in seeking from Panama. Sin-
cerely yours

4412 • TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, August 21, 1907

Dear Kenmt: I did not really feel sorry to say good-by to you, because I felt
that it was such a fine thing for you to have a cavalry nde with Fitz Lee and
then the praine chicken shooting. It was a very different feeling from when I
just see you going back to school.

We had a pleasant trip to Provmcetown. Ted, as you know, simply could
not make up his mind to stay behind, and preferred to go on a torpedo boat,
tho he does not care for the water any more than you or I do. When we got
to Provincetown Ethel and Cornelia 1 wigwagged to him to join them ashore,

1 Taft attributed to Cromwell the apparent success of the United States in arranging

the agreement between Panama and Colombia, see No 4407, note 1.

1 Cornelia Landon.

759

and the three of them, together with a very nice young Ensign, got hold of a
little wagon and drove off to the lighthouse, where they got lunch. It was
beautiful weather going to Provincetown, and the day itself went off well,
including my speech. Bryce spoke, too, and Cabot Lodge, whose speech was
far and away the best of all. My speech told, I believe. Of course it did not
suit Wall Street, but I did not expect that it would. An amusing thing was
that after consultation with Cousin Emlen I put in a few sentences which he
thought might, without compromising my position, ease up a little bit in the
feeling in the Street, and I was informed that when they were pubhshed in
the stock exchange there was a great flurry and stocks went down several
points.

It was all very interesting, for it is a quaint old fishing town, and the
banquet which we attended after the speaking, where a poet was to make
an address as well as various people of local renown, reminded me of the
Gloucester celebration in Captains Courageous and the old sea captain with
his seventy-two hatchet-made verses. After the banquet, which I cut very
short, I went around to a hall and shook hands with five hundred Gloucester
fishermen whom Connolly had brought in from the sailing fleet. They were
the originals of his stories, and I was mighty glad to see them.

Coming back we ran into a fog and had to go out into the ocean south of
Nantucket, and did not get in until late in the afternoon. Your affectionate
father

4413 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt M.SS.

Oyster Bay, August 21, 1907

To the Secretary of War: A report comparing army and navy methods of fire
control has recently been submitted to the Navy Department by the Inspec-
tor of Target Practice for the Navy. I have seen this report, and it seems to
show a backwardness in the army that gives me great concern. There was
such backwardness in the navy up to within five years, altho the navy’s de-
fects in marksmanship and ordnance were clearly pointed out from 1895 to
1898. It was necessary in the navy to overcome the inertia of the bureau
chiefs, especially of the elderly men who were reluctant to adopt new ideas.
It is not too much to say that the navy’s marksmanship is fivefold better than
it was five years ago. I believe that a similar improvement can be made in the
army. 1 1 request you to obtain an official copy of the above report from the
Navy Department, and to submit it to the General Staff for consideration and
report, which report will then be forwarded to me.

1 In a subsequent report, the War Department pointed to the great improvement in
the accuracy of its artillery fire since 1900. In the same report, however, it described
for the first time since 1900 the Army’s critical need for improved uniform fire-
control equipment, sec War Department, Annual Reports, 1908, II, 199, 228-231.

760

44 1 4 * T0 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 21, 1907

Dear Will: As I think I wrote you and as you have doubtless seen, I struck out
the allusion to the receivership, I think you are right about it.

There is just one point as to which I feel uneasy, and that is the Philippine
question. We have continually to accommodate ourselves to conditions as
they actually are and not as we would wish them to be. I wish our people
were prepared permanently, in a duty-loving spirit, and looking forward to
a couple of generations of continuous manifestation of this spirit, to assume
the control of the Philippine Islands for the good of the Filipinos. But as a
matter of fact I gravely question whether this is the case. Even in the West
Indies, which are right under us here at home, and where anything that
happens is brought home close to us, and where we are at an enormous ad-
vantage compared with foreign powers in dealing with any situation, it is
exceedingly difficult to get this people to take a proper view of any emer-
gency that arises. In Cuba last year while we carried our people with us,
there was a week or two when things trembled in the balance, because on
the one hand certain extremists wished us to announce that we would forth-
with seize and hold Cuba for our own profit, while a larger number of people
objected to our interfering at all. It took me two years to get through the
Santo Domingan treaty — a treaty which was of undiluted benefit to this
country, — simply because the people as a whole would not bother their
heads about the situation I have never gotten them up to the point of taking
even a tepid interest in Castro’s outrageous iniquity in treating American
interests m Venezuela, and this is all where the Monroe Doctrine applies and
where in consequence the average American has something in the way of
traditional national- action to which appeal can be made as a precedent. As
regards the Philippines all is different. In the excitement of the Spanish War
people wanted to take the islands. They had an idea they would be a valuable
possession. Now they think that they are of no value, and I am bound to say
that in the physical sense I don’t see where they are of any value to us or
where they are likely to be of any value. It has been everything for the
islands and everything for our own national character that we should have
taken them and have administered them with the really lofty and disinterested
efficiency that has been shown. But it is impossible for instance to awaken
any public interest in favor of giving them tariff advantages, it is very difficult
to awaken any public interest in providing any adequate defense of the
islands; and though if attacked our people would certainly defend them at
no matter what cost in warfare, the result would in the end be such utter
disgust that at the first opportunity the islands would be cut adrift or
handed over to anyone. Mind you I am not saymg what I think our people
ought to feel, but what I fear they do feel — just as in connection with the
Californians and Japanese, while I partly altered my own convictions on the

761

subject, I partly simply had to recognize that the convictions of the great
mass of our people on the Pacific Slope were unalterable.

This leads me up to saying that I think we shall have to be prepared for
giving the islands independence of a more or less complete type much sooner
than I think advisable from their own standpoint, or than I would think
advisable if this country were prepared to look ahead fifty years and to build
the navy and erect the fortifications which in my judgment it should. The
Philippines form our heel of Achilles. They are all that makes the present
situation with Japan dangerous. I think that in some way and with some
phraseology that you think wise you should state to them that if they
handle themselves wisely in their legislative assembly we shall at the earliest
possible moment give them a nearly complete independence. Root used the
expression a couple of years ago of saying that our aim was to put them in the
position of Cuba. Just at the moment Cuba’s position is not that in which I
hope to see the Philippine Islands; and it may be that you can as you suggest
better use the simile of Canada and Australia, saying that they will have as
complete self-government as Canada and Australia have. My point is that we
must very seriously consider both domestic and foreign conditions as regards
the retention of the islands. To have Hale at the head of the naval committee
is a bad thing anyhow, but to have him at the head of the committee while the
possession of the Philippines renders us vulnerable in Asia for lack of a great
fleet is a veritable national calamity. To keep the islands without treating
them generously and at the same time without adequately fortifying them and
without building up a navy second only to that of Great Britain, would be
disastrous in the extreme. Yet there is danger of just this being done. It is the
islands themselves and not us that have benefited by the connection, save of
course, as we benefit and as all people benefit by doing well a piece of duty
that ought to be done. I do not believe our people will permanently accept
the Philippines simply as an unremunerative and indeed expensive duty. I
think that to have some pretty clear avowal of our intention not to perma-
nently keep them and to give them independence would remove a tempta-
tion from Japan’s way and would render our task at home easier. Personally
I should be glad to see the islands made independent, with perhaps some kind
of international guarantee for the preservation of order, or with some warn-
ing on our part that if they did not keep order we would have to interfere
again; this among other reasons because I would rather see this nation fight all
her life than to see her give them up to Japan or any other nation under
duress.

I am more and more pleased with the fact that the fleet has been ordered
to the Pacific. It is good from every standpoint. There will be difficulties of
all kinds in connection with getting it there; and it is only by the actual
experience of these difficulties that we shall be able to force the creatures of
the Hale type into providing what the navy actually needs.

Good luck go with you! Ever faithfully yours

44 1 5 * T0 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, August 22, 1907

My dear Mr. Attorney General: Mr. George W. Perkins of the International
Harvester Company, has just called upon me and submitted to me certain
papers of which I enclose copies. According to these papers and to Mr.
Perkins’ statements it would appear that the Harvester Company has re-
peatedly, on its own initiative, asked that its business be investigated by the
Department of Commerce and Labor thru the Commissioner of Corporations;
that three years ago the Interstate Commerce Commission decided that it had
accepted what amounted substantially to rebates; that Mr. Moody, the then
Attorney General, was about to take action in this report, but the Harvester
Company at once promised to rectify the practices and see that nothing
contrary to the ruling of the Commission was again done. This was satisfac-
tory to the Attorney General and the suit was dropped. The Harvester Com-
pany says it is m a position to prove that it has lived up to this agreement
made in May 1904. The Harvester Company advances this as a proof that if
any illegal action is pointed out it will itself rectify the matter on its being
pointed out. It further appears that last December Senator Hansbrough got
the Senate to pass a resolution directing the Department of Commerce and
Labor to make an early investigation into the character and operation, and ef-
fect upon interstate commerce of the International Harvester Company, and
that m January last Messrs. Garfield and Smith met various representatives of
the Harvester Company in New York and a conclusion was reached that
the Department would begin the examination as speedily as possible, which
conclusion was announced publicly in the press. On March 7th Commissioner
Smith notified the Harvester Company that the inquiry would be into the
incorporation value of its property, securities, and the general management
of its business. It appears by his letter of August 8th that Commissioner
Smith has begun the investigation but has not made such progress with it as
he would like to on account of his being crowded with work. Mr. Perkins’
request to me is that, before the company is exposed to the certain loss and
damage that the mere institution of a suit would entail, this investigation by
Mr. Smith as required by Senate Resolution should be carried to completion.
He explicitly states to me that there would be no intention to plead the
examination by the Department of Commerce and Labor as conferring any
immunity from proceedings by the Department of Justice.

Will you see Mr. Perkins and Commissioner Smith, go over the matter in
full, and report to me thereon^

Please do not file the suit until I hear from you. 1

1 The International Harvester Company, to Roosevelt an example of a “good” trust,
to William Z Ripley “a clean, straightforward combination,” was not prosecuted
until 1912. It was m that year a campaign issue, as Perkins supported Roosevelt, who
by his acceptance of this support and his previous protection of International Har-
vester, Taft contended, proved he was a friend of big business. The Bureau of

763

44 1 6 - TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE

Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 22, 1907

My dear Bonaparte: Re the Jones matter, I enclose you his letter to me and
a copy of my answer, which you see uses substantially the language of your
letter to me and of your letter to him.

As to the Standard Oil-Alton case, I agree entirely with the conclusion
that you have reached. Your letter to Sims of August 20th must convince any
reasonable man not only of the propriety of your action, but that good faith
absolutely demands that we take the position you indicate our intention of
taking. I have not a suggestion to make about it.

It looks to me as if the Times, the Sun, the Journal of Commerce , perhaps
the Evening Tost, and one or two others were deliberately trying to discredit
you. They cannot well expect to drive you out of office while I am Presi-
dent, however — altho I see that they have published rumors that Root and
Cortelyou had forced you out! You may possibly have noticed that all these
papers have attacked me for my Provmcetown speech even more bitterly than
they have attacked you. I think your letter to Higginson admirable, but my
judgment is that it would be better not to publish it now. I think the less that
is said the better. Your position is as clear as a bell. In my Provincetown
speech I in substance took the same stand in favor of the honest enforcement
of law that you do in your letter to Higginson, and I do not think that it is
worth while to reiterate it. If the criticism was honest, then there would be
much to be said in favor of removing any possible misapprehension. But the
criticism is not honest. These papers attack you, as they attack me, because
it is part of their settled purpose to do so, because they wish to break down
my administration and drive you from the Department of Justice, not because
they think we have not enforced the law, but because they think we have
enforced the law. Your letter to Higginson would, in my judgment, simply
give them a chance to raise more clamor. On the other hand, I think it a most
admirable thing that you have written it, because it may be very convenient
to be able to publish it sometime in the future.

As to the meeting of the attorneys general, my judgment is that it is of
doubtful benefit for you to go. It is apparently gotten up by the Governor of
Alabama for the sake of devising a method of preventing Federal interference
with the States. You would have to be extremely careful in your speech there,
and it would be quite as damaging not to go far enough as to go too far in
what you said. My judgment (which is subject, however, to your own

Corporations reported on the company in 1912, concluding with the delphic state-
ment that “while its financial advantage has been supplemented by the adoption of
certain objectionable competitive methods, the mainspring of its power was the
consolidation of the leading competitive factors in the industry ” For the bureau’s re-
port and the court opinion of 1914 ordering the company dissolved, see Ripley,
Trusts, Pools and Corporations, ch. ix and pp. 634-6;$.

764

preference in the matter) is that the wise thing is not to go, but to make our
position perfectly clear in our own way and when the time is ripe.

I have sent you a letter in connection with the harvester trust. I may ask
you to appoint a tame, either at Lenox or Northeast Harbor, when you can
see George W. Perkins and Commissioner of Corporations Smith.

I am interested m what you say about McHarg. I would not trust his
judgment on affairs in New Mexico. The wise thing, I am convinced, is to
have Cooley go down there two or three months hence and talk over the
situation at length with Curry, and then have Cooley and perhaps Curry come
to see me. We had a right to suppose that McHarg, who was the private
secretary of the North Dakota Senator, would know something of the West,
and Garfield and Ballinger thought highly of him. It has proved unfortunate
to have him sent there. Altho I think he is entirely honest, his judgment has
certainly been very much at fault. The first thing that any man has to do in
New Mexico is to understand that the people have wholly different ideals
from those, say, of Salem, Massachusetts.

Now, about Ruick, I think you are taking just the right course. Will you
let me make one suggestion, however? I hope that in some future letter you
can dwell more at length upon his insistence to us in his letter sent to you
before I saw you at Oyster Bay upon having an immediate trial . 1 Also, would
it not be well to have it known that Borah’s demand to us was that we should
ourselves examine into the case and have it dismist? This we refused, but
stated that he was entitled, on grounds of broad public policy as a United
States Senator, to have his trial pushed as speedily as possible. Borah is cer-
tainly entitled to a speedy trial, and if Ruick refuses to try him forthwith and
puts the matter off later than September, we are justified in removing him and
informing him that it is evident he desires to avoid a trial for reasons uncon-
nected with any purpose to get justice. Doubtless our letters will be made
public; and we want to use sufficient emphasis to make it unnecessary to ex-
plain by any other statement that we are in the right and Ruick is in the
wrong; or that he is not being forced to do something so difficult that he
ought not to be requested to do it because of an arbitrary and improper
desire of the President.

As for the Times, Sun, Evening Post and the like, let them howl. They
represent Wall Street, which apparently also is now controlling the World.
I do not think that they represent the opinion of the country, and even if
they do, that does not alter the duty that you and I have to do, and that
duty we will do. Always yours

P.S. The enclosed letter from Governor Curry explains itself. Will you
show it and the P.S. to this letter to Cooley? If thru McHarg’s action Curry
were induced to resign, New Mexican affairs would literally be thrown into

1 The final text of Bonaparte’s letter to Ruick removing him from the Borah case is

fully covered in No 4418.

765

chaos. 2 Curry’s resignation would mean that it would be an absolute impossi-
bility to get a competent man with any sufficient following to take the
position. I think that it would be well for you to give him a brief resume
of what Curry has said; that under no circumstances must he do anything to
antagonize Curry or make a statement which can even be twisted into an
attack upon the administration down there. Let him prosecute offenders to
the very extent of his ability, and if he sees anything that he thinks we ought
to know let him tell us and let him avoid trying to meddle with the machineiy
of government — a task for which he is totally unsuited, and in doing which
he has almost caused very serious trouble already. The truth is that we
needed down there a bigger man with more judgment than McHarg, but it
would not do to change him now. Like many well-meaning small men, he
thinks he will make a complete change, without taking into account the
nature of the community in which he is acting or the improbability of getting
anything as good as what he has changed. The trouble with McHarg was
that he got into a nest of busybodies at Santa Fe. I wish he could be warned
to keep his mouth shut and to associate as little as possible with the factionists
down there.

I suppose you saw that Congressman McCall, the idol of the Boston
mugwumps, has delivered himself of a bitter attack both on you and myself.

4417 • to george curry Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 23, 1907

My dear Governor: I have your letter of the 19th. Nonsense — I have no
more thought of accepting your resignation than I have of flying. I had
already written you on receipt of your letter of August 14th, to retain Fall
and to appoint Leahy as his successor at the time that you desired. 1 McHarg
has been instructed not to meddle with territorial officials, but to go straight
ahead with such of his suits as it is necessary to continue lest they be barred
under the statute of limitations. 2 I need not reiterate my entire confidence
in you. Faithfully yours.

4418 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 24, 1907

My dear Bonaparte: With reference to your letter of August 22d I shall
be glad to see Kellogg next week and go over the Standard Oil and the Union

“See No. 4417.

1 David J Leahy, a former Rough Rider, did not become distuct attorney until
December, when William H H Llewellyn, who had earlier replaced Fall, was
forced to resign.

2 McHarg, besides proceeding against the lumber companies, had indicted nineteen
persons tor fraudulent coal land entries.

7 66

Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroad cases. I agree entirely of course with
the attitude you indicate as being proper to take in both matters. Can he
come out Monday for lunch?

I entirely approve of your letter to Bisbee, and suggest that we now ap-
point Sheppard.

I am glad of the action you have taken in connection with Judge Jones’
experience in Alabama. You sent an excellent letter to the District Attorney.
It would be a good thing to have it published.

As for the case of Whipple and Clayton, look into it at your leisure and
report to me. 1

Now, as for the two telegrams which you sent about Ruick. I am not in
the least surprised to learn that Ruick intended to state in open court, when
dismissing the indictment against Senator Borah, that I was responsible for
the inability to prosecute him. In consequence, the first and most important
thing is that our telegram to him, (which you shall demand to have read in
open court, will) put the responsibility absolutely on his shoulders. In my
judgment it is essential that that telegram shall contain full quotations from
his letter of July 30th. State that Ruick on that date stated to us that it was
exceedingly embarrassing to him in his office to have the preparation for trial
and the trial of these land fraud cases delayed for any cause, and especially
so where such delay was brought about by representations from a defendant
and other persons in league and m sympathy with him; and that the Haywood
case had been made use of in the first instance unsuccessfully in an effort to
check the land fraud investigation, and secondly to hamper and delay the
prosecutions under the conspiracy indictments in April last. Say to Ruick
that he then continued, stating that the acquittal of Haywood should relieve
the United States from any obligation to further consider the pendency of
these cases in the State court as cause for delay m the prosecutions pending
in the United States court, and that he stated that it was impossible for his
office to further proceed with any phase of these land fraud prosecutions
without giving publicity to the proceedings of the Grand Jury and the evi-
dence upon which the indictments are'based. Ruick then went on to cite as an
instance a man who is a resident of Canada, whom he wisht to have arrested
at once; and that he desired further to investigate matters involving Governor
Steunenberg’s relations to the Barber Lumber Company. Ruick closes by
saying that.

You appreciate also that public sentiment has much to do with the success of
a prosecution, and while my hands have been tied, the defendants have availed
themselves of the opportunity to misrepresent the position of the Government, to
decry the prosecution, to denounce the prosecutor, and to charge political and
other unworthy motives as the only basis for these indictments. I want to be free

1 Powell Clayton, Republican national committeeman for Arkansas, and William G.

Whipple, United States district attorney for Arkansas, bitter political enemies since

Reconstruction days, were at odds over the appointment of an assistant district

attorney to replace Ulysses S Patton, whom Roosevelt had removed in July.

767

to proceed — to let the public know the truth and that the prosecution is prepared
to vindicate its action in relation to these indictments.

I know that you appreciate the conditions and the embarrassment under which
I have labored and will still continue to labor until the facts are permitted to be
published and the prosecutions proceed. I request, therefore, if consistent with
your views, that you authorize me henceforth to proceed under my original
instructions of February 25th last, thus leaving me untrammelled and free to
conduct these prosecutions, as I have other land fraud prosecutions in this Dis-
trict.

I would quote all these extracts in full and verbatim. I would then state
to Ruick that on receipt of this letter you had taken the matter up with me
and that we had come to the conclusion that it was very doubtful whether
there could with propriety be any further delay m the matter; that meanwhile
Mr. William Allen White, among others, had written me stating that the
proceedings against Borah were absolutely without justification and were
part of a dangerous conspiracy in which Mr. Ruick was one of the chief
agents, the object being partly out of personal and factional . . . and partly
to help out the defendants in the Moyer-Haywood cases. A number of other
individuals have written me to the same effect, making various allegations
against Ruick. Mr. White and Mr. Connolly of Montana came east and saw
you and myself. Their request was not that Borah’s case should be speedily
tried, but that he should not be put on trial at all, that you should go over
the evidence yourself, because they were confident that if you did you would
see how flimsy it was and how impossible it would be to sanction a prosecu-
tion where there was no chance of a conviction, and where the object merely
was to gratify certain sinister outside purposes. After full hearing we an-
swered that we could not do as requested; your statement being that while
your knowledge of the facts was gained almost entirely from Mr. Ruick’s
own statements, yet that where he had made these so positively and that where
a grand jury had returned an indictment, whatever the surrounding circum-
stances might be, you did not feel warranted any more than I did in failing
to go on with the trial. Messrs. White and Connolly not until then asked that
if we could not go on with the trial, we should at least direct that as regards
Senator Borah the case should be pushed to an immediate conclusion; that
Senator Borah was a United States Senator, that his usefulness was at an
end while this indictment was hanging over him, and that for reasons of the
highest public policy it was desirable that the case should be instantly pushed
to a conclusion one way or the other, as until it was done Idaho would be
deprived of one half of her representation in the Senate — the Senator not
to take his seat while under an indictment. They concluded by expressing the
firm conviction that as long as we declined to adopt their original suggestion,
this was the only course consistent with justice toward Senator Borah, be-
cause of their belief that the suit against him was not undertaken m good
faith; that there was no hope on the part of Ruick to bring it to a successful
conclusion, but a purpose to keep it dragging along indefinitely.

768

Then I should add to Ruick that as the request of Messrs White and
Connolly was m everything save the severance of Borah’s case precisely on all
fours with the request made by him (Ruick) in his letter of July 20th, which
we had but recently received, I without any hesitation stated that it should
be granted, that you (or if you prefer, I) felt that the simplest way of test-
ing his (Ruick’s) good faith in the matter was to accede to his request of
July 20th and order an immediate continuance of the proceedings with all
necessary publicity, specifying simply that the first trial should be m Septem-
ber of Borah himself, for obvious reasons of public policy.

In Ruick’s letter of June 18th he said that if he was not to proceed against
the resident and nonresident parties named in these indictments here with
a view to bringing the defendants to trial m the September term, he felt
that the chances of succeeding in the prosecution would be seriously dimin-
ished. Quote this. Proceed by telling Ruick that until you had thus yielded
not merely to the requests of Mr. White and Mr. Connolly but to what he
(Ruick) had again and again asked, by placmg the trials m September, we
never received a hint from him of any possible objection to doing so. It
might be well to recall to him that he did not give us a hint of any intention
to indict Borah until Borah was actually indicted, and that his one plea has
been for quick action — if possible, for action in September; that now he is
given authority to proceed as publicly as he chooses to take any action he
chooses, but to proceed first against Borah for the reasons already given.
State that under these conditions we are wholly unable to understand what
he means by his request “to dismiss the Senator out of the indictment at the
opening of the term, September 9th, in view of the condition set forth in
his letter of August 1 ith and your reply,” evidently the letter of August 17th;
that in our judgment it is exceedingly difficult to reconcile this action of his
with any theory save that advanced by the friends of Senator Borah, namely,
that he is not proceeding in good faith against the Senator, that he has no
belief that he can be convicted, and simply desires to let the case drag on for
reasons wholly unconnected with justice.

Ruick’s letter of July 30th sets forth nothing but conditions which neces-
sitate the trial of the Senator on September 9th and the immediate proceeding
against all of the defendants. This is precisely what m your letter of August
17th you authorized. The sole change you made, which was by my direction,
was that for the purpose of hurrying up the matter against the Senator, his
case should be taken up at once In Ruick’s letter of July 30th, less than a
fortnight before his letter of August nth, he gives no hint that he had
changed from the belief exprest m his letter of June 18th that the cases could
be tried m September. You in your letter to him had already explicitly stated
that you believed we could avoid any necessity of postpomng the cases later
than September, altho you declined to commit yourself m the matter. Re-
iterate what you said m your letter of August 17 th that your understanding
was that Ruick’s doubt as to whether the cases could be brought to trial at the

769

September term, arose merely from his fear lest some of the defendants should
object to an early trial.

Now for a matter on which I feel doubtful. On page 4 of your letter of
August 17th are certain expressions which an honest man would not miscon-
strue, but which Mr. Ruick may. You say, for instance, that my decision
binds the Department and Ruick, and that any comment upon it is wholly
inappropriate. If Ruick is determined to resign, however, this sentence will
doubtless cause him to make the comment, and probably m connection with
the next sentence, where you say that the Department does not regard itself
as responsible for certain peculiar difficulties which the task has imposed upon
Ruick. Ruick will of course assume that this means that I, the President, have
imposed upon him certain peculiar difficulties for which the Department does
not regard itself as responsible. I do not quite understand myself if this is the
meaning of the letter If so, do you not think it would be well for me to
send to you such a communication as I am outlining here m this letter, which
you could then transmit to Ruick > If, however, the sentence means that the
peculiar difficulties are due partly to the nature of the case itself and partly
to Ruick’s own position as we had a right to understand it, then would it not
be well to set this forth?

In any event, in view of the use to which Ruick evidently intends to put
our letters, my own judgment is clear that we cannot afford to permit him
to dismiss the indictment against Borah, stating, as he undoubtedly will, that
it is due to my action and for the reasons set forth in his letter and your re-
ply. My judgment is that we should in our letter state that his attitude has
given us cause so thoroly to doubt his good faith that we hereby request his
resignation; that we no longer feel confidence either that he will press the
case against Borah if he is really guilty, or that he will refrain from taking
action merely because there is no warrant for such action. Add in your com-
munication to him that we take tins course with great reluctance because
it will probably mean the defeat of the purpose we have in view of securing
a quick trial for Senator Borah, because any new counsel appointed will
inevitably have to take so much time to familiarize himself with the whole
case that it is useless to expect him to act with the speed with which Ruick
could certainly act if he had the inclination; but that we prefer to suffer the
consequences of this delay, and to impose its consequences upon Senator
Borah, rather than any longer trust to the actions of a District Attorney who
has forfeited our confidence. Consider whether it would be worth while to
work into your letter the quotation from his letter of July 30th m which he
recites his belief in the innocence of Haywood. It is the opening paragraph of
his letter. I think this would show his evident animus.

My inclination is then to offer the position to Heney, announcing that
the offer had been made, but to be prepared to take some other man if Heney
is not able to accept.

770

1 do not regard this proposed course of action as in all respects satisfac-
tory, but it seems to me at the moment less unsatisfactory than any other
would be. The trouble is fundamental. We are dealing with a sharp scamp
in the person of Ruick. He has been guilty of trickery all along. His aim has
been to try to put us in a bad position, or else to make us accomplices in his
knavery. I agree with you that it is imperative now to get rid of Ruick. Just
as long as he stays in we will have trouble, because he is obviously treacherous
and his chief purpose is to cause embarrassment to the administration and to
his factional foes in Idaho. I think his asking authority to dismiss the indict-
ment against Borah gives us the chance, and that by reciting in the telegram
to him the fact that we are well aware that our appointment of special
counsel means the very delay we had hoped to avoid, we arm ourselves
against criticism for permitting such delay. Then we will take a first-rate
special district attorney — Heney or someone else. If this special district
attorney finds that there is warrant for the indictment of Borah, then we can
say that this shows that we were right in dismissing Ruick because he de-
clined to push the case against Borah; and moreover we will then be able to
tell Borah’s friends that we now have an entirely unprejudiced man who has
taken up the case, that the case no longer stands on the same level it formerly
did when Borah’s bitter personal enemy was in official position to press the
case, and that it must now stand precisely as all other similar cases stand. If
on the other hand the special counsel advises the dismissal of the case against
Borah, Ruick is also condemned.

It is a difficult matter. I wish I could have talked it over with you in
person, and it is of such importance that if your mind is not clear I think
you had better come down and go over it with me. Perhaps you could
summon Cooley and go over the whole matter with him, and then send him
here with a letter to me. If you can come down, however, I think it will be
better. Faithfully yours

P.S. My judgment is that you might open your telegram to Ruick by say-
ing that his conduct in now announcing his desire to move for the dismissal of
the action against Borah, in view of his repeated letters requesting that the ac-
tion be hastened, and in view of the Department’s instructions to him to pro-
ceed immediately against Borah, is so reprehensible that his usefulness in the
service is at an end, and that his resignation is hereby accepted. Then go on
and recite the facts specifically as outlined above . 2

2 Bonaparte, closely following Roosevelt’s suggestions, notified Ruick on August 2 6 of
lus removal from the Borah case. The case was tried m late September with Mars-
den C Burch rather than Heney acting as government prosecutor Borah was ac-
quitted after a short trial in which he neither produced evidence nor made a plea to
free himself The sympathetic citizens of Boise made his acquittal the occasion for a
spectacular celebration during which the whole town became “gloriously drunk.”
When Ruick did not resign, the President removed him from office in June 1908, see
Johnson, Borah , pp 86-87.

771

44*9 * TO LAWRENCE FRASER ABBOTT

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, August 24, 1907

My dear Abbott : In view of your admirable discussion of the present situa-
tion you may perhaps be interested in the two letters of which I send you
copies; only for your private information. I of course have been deluged
with letters from people who ask me to stop what I am doing and warning
me that I must stop, that I am ruining the country; that I am vindictive, that
there must be no more prosecutions for past offenses, etc., etc., these letters
being accompanied by a more slender stream of letters wanting to know why
I have not been more vigorous in enforcing the law, why I have not had more
prosecutions, why I did not put Rockefeller and Harnman in jail, etc. I
finally selected the president of a college and the editor of a paper, to whom
I could write a couple of letters which, where necessary, I could show after-
wards to reputable people who seem wholly unconscious as to where I
should ultimately find myself if I should follow the course of action they
advise. 1 Faithfully yours

[j Handwritten ] Would you care to have me send you some letters from
Judge Jones about the railway altercation m Alabama

4420 * TO ALVEY AUGUSTUS ADEE Roosevelt MSS.

Telegram Oyster Bay, August 24, 1907

I approve of your sending that cable excepting that it might be better to
have it appear as if we were backing up Mexico rather than taking the initia-
tive and being backed up by Mexico. 1 Ask the President of Mexico what form
of cable is most agreeable to him and make it in that form.

4421 • to silas mc bee Roosevelt Mss .

Private Oyster Bay, August 27, 1907

Dear Mr . McBee: Of course you can keep those letters, but if you show them
to anyone please don’t mention the names of the persons to whom they were
written

I was interested in Bishop Brent’s sermon, but it puzzled me as much as it
did you. Surely he must be suffering from some great mental strain. It seems
1 See No 4406

*The United States on August 25 offered to assist in Mexico’s effort to restore peace
m Central America Honduras, endangered by the renewed hostilities between
El Salvador and Nicaragua, had requested this intervention, which resulted 111 the
treaties of friendship and commerce signed at the Central American Peace Con-
ference at Washingtoh in December 1907 For a complete account of the negotia-
tions leading to the conference and the work of the conference, see Hill, Roosevelt
and the Caribbean , pp 185-193 The important documents, including the American
dispatches, most of which were written by Adee over Roosevelt’s signature, are in
Foreign Relations) 1907, II, 636-727.

772

to me in questionable taste to compare a man of the New Testament who is
numbered among the Saints by all Christians who ever use the title “Saint”
at all, to even the greatest layman, like Washington. Waiving this matter,
and speaking as a historian, it is a grotesque absurdity to compare Washington
with even the best present English Colonial administrator, as Lord Cromer
undoubtedly is. I think that Leonard Wood is a man who ranks in Cromer’s
class, and I do not think that either Chatham or Pitt ranks with Washing-
ton; yet I should think it a simple absurdity to compare Wood with Pitt
or Chatham. It is a much greater absurdity to compare or couple together
Washington and Cromer. Moreover it is an utterly forced comparison. The
tasks of the two men, aside from their difference m importance, had nothing
whatever m common. Washington can be compared with Lincoln or
Timoleon or John Hampden or William the Silent, with some show of reason.
But to compare him with Cromer is as inept as to compare, say, Luke Wright
with the Duke of Wellington.

Now, as to Bishop Brent’s sudden attack on the American Government of
the Philippines. This is made m a sermon in which he emphasized “truth”
as standing above everything else. Of course, one can be untruthful by
omission just as much as m any other way, and false comparisons and exag-
gerations are untruthful. It is hardly worth noticing, but Bishop Brent makes
one slur which is entirely untruthful when he compares, m point of truth-
fulness, Washington and Cromer with “modern diplomats and politicians.”
Cromer is modern, m the first place, and in the next place, diplomats and
politicians were quite as untruthful in Washington’s time as they are now —
as Bishop Brent must know if he has ever read any history at all; if, for in-
stance, he has ever read about Lord North’s ministry and the cabal against
Washington in the Continental Congress, or the intrigues of the French and
Spanish diplomats during the peace negotiations that concluded the Revolu-
tionary War. Bishop Brent simply makes himself look foolish when he utters
sneers so cheap that the slightest knowledge of history would save him from
them.

But this is a side issue. My main point of quarrel with him would be
what he says about our government m the Philippines. The extract he quotes
from Lord Cromer’s speech shows that what he is attacking us for is having
given too much liberty to the Filipinos, and now for having started them on
the experiment of a legislative assembly His plea is for a benevolent despot-
ism. He praises Lord Cromer, ranking his words with Washington’s, because
Lord Cromer states that the Egyptians shall not govern themselves, Lord
Cromer’s practice having been to govern the Egyptians with justice and
wisdom, but avowedly without any idea of ultimately giving them inde-
pendence or self-government, or of England’s ultimately leaving the coun-
try — as by the way, she solemnly pledged herself to do. Bishop Brent’s
criticism of American government in the Philippines, therefore, is that we
have gone too fast m striving to give the Filipinos self-government, that we

773

are now going too fast in the effort to fit them to stand alone. Either his
words are sheer nonsense and mean nothing or else they mean this, and they
can by no possibility mean anything else.

Such being the case Bishop Brent deserves severe criticism according to
the canon of exact truthfulness which he sets up. It is not truthful to use
words which can be easily mistaken or misinterpreted by outsiders. Anti-
imperialists and the critics of the administration policy generally here in the
United States would very possibly be misled by Bishop Brent’s sermon, or
would regard it as in a general way assailing the administration in the
Philippines and thereby justifying the anti-imperialist criticism; whereas, if
Bishop Brent’s criticism means anything, it means that he condemns us for
having come too near the anti-imperialist idea. Bishop Brent has no business
to criticize at all unless he states frankly and fairly what he means; that is,
unless in this case he states that so far from being guilty of what the anti-
imperialists accuse us, the Government is really guilty of having paid too
much heed to Filipino desires, too much heed to democratic theories; of
having been too desirous of allowing the Filipinos to govern themselves; of
having gone too far in giving them this self-government; of endeavoring too
rapidly to fit them to stand alone; of having been too altruistic. There are
people in the United States who believe that this is the fact, and they can
make out from their standpoint a strong case. But the ordinary criticism, the
criticism we have to meet on the stump and in newspapers and periodicals, is
the direct reverse, and Bishop Brent has no business not to make his position
perfectly clear.

So much for his truthfulness. Now for his wisdom. He takes into account
neither the difference between the Philippines and Egypt nor yet the differ-
ence between the United States and any monarchy. As regards the first, it
ought to be apparent to everybody that a people of Moslem fellahin who
have never in all time exercised any self-government whatever, and who have
never even been under a native tyrant for the last two thousand five hundred
years, present a problem altogether different from an archipelago peopled for
the most part by Christians, with an upper class which is partly European by
blood, while the lower class is composed for the most part of men of Malay
stock who stand on a totally different footing from Egyptian serfs. The
problem of what to do with this people is very difficult. I am not at all sure
that they will soon be able to govern themselves, and I am entirely sure that
they will do best if governed for a long time to come by a Taft or a Wood
or a Smith. But neither am I sure how long, under our party system, we will
continue to have Tafts, Woods and Smiths to govern them, especially when
men like Bishop Brent, who should devote their whole energy to upholding
the hands of Taft and his colleagues, indulge in such silly and senseless state-
ments as that I am now discussing. Moreover, Bishop Brent would do well to
remember the ideals of our people at home, and the fact that statesmen have
to take into account both the ideals, and the lack of knowledge of the pecul-

774

iar difficulties in the Philippines, among our people. Our people do not desire
to hold foreign dependencies, and do believe in self-government for them.
Not a European nation would have given up Cuba as we gave it up. Not a
European nation would be behaving toward Cuba as we are at this moment
behaving — and I suppose Bishop Brent would disapprove of our actions and
would believe that what we ought to do is to send in a Milner to try to act
in Cuba as Milner acted at the Cape. We keep Porto Rico because we cannot
help ourselves. In Panama we have kept the very minimum amount of control
over the Isthmus that is compatible with digging the canal. In Santo Domingo
we have interfered only to the extent of seeing that the customs dues are
collected regularly and enough put aside to pay the legitimate debts, so as
to prevent foreign nations from having an excuse for interference. In the
Philippines we found ourselves by accident in possession of the islands as the
result of war. We found that the islands were wholly unable to stand alone,
and we have stayed there since literally for the islanders 7 good and not for
our own, and with as lofty a national purpose of performance of duty as has
ever been seen — a realized purpose, too. It is basely ungrateful for Bishop
Brent not to keep this fact steadily before his own eyes and the eyes of those
to whom he addresses himself.

As you say, I am at a loss to know exactly what Bishop Brent means, and
this in spite of his praise of truthfulness, which ought to include as a neces-
sary preliminary exactness of statement. The English in the Malay provinces
who administer them under the same system as Lord Cromer administered
Egypt, and who have all of Lord Cromer’s horror of representative institu-
tions of self-government, have from the standpoint of the natives done infi-
nitely worse than we have done, or, to speak more exactly, whereas we have
greatly helped the natives, they have ruined them. They get their revenue
from opium, from drink, and even m more questionable ways, and we do
not. They exploit the business by Chinese labor, to the destruction of the
original inhabitants. We are content to accept a deficit rather than to get a
revenue from opium and drink and licentiousness, or to destroy the natives
by bringing in Chinese Either Bishop Brent knows these facts, m which
case he should show his knowledge, or else he does not know them, in which
case he is incompetent to express judgment.

I know you will not misunderstand me. I think Lord Cromer is one of
the greatest modern colonial administrators, and he has handled Egypt just
according to Egypt’s needs; but the Philippines present a totally different
problem. It is a very hard problem, because we must consider it in connection
with this country’s needs and ideas also, and with what it is reasonable to
expect as a permanent policy of this country with its alternating system of
party control. I am perfectly sure that the best thing for the Philippines
would be to have a succession of Tafts administer them for the next century.
I am not sure, either that under changing administrations we would get a
succession of Tafts, nor yet that our people will patiently submit, as in my

775

judgment they ought to, to doing an onerous duty for which they will get
no thanks and no material reward; while from a military standpoint the
Philippines form our heel of Achilles.

With regard, Sincerely yours

4422 • TO JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP RoOSCVelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 29, 1907

Dear Bishop: Your two letters have come, and needless to say I welcome
them. Get the Colonel to cable me as you suggest. Send me one cable for
publication, and then m addition, if you desire, send me one cable containing
any suggestions which you would like me to emphasize I will send the
Colonel back a message of congratulation and have them both published.
This will emphasize the kind of work that is being done. 1

I am not surprised that the Colonel finds the Commission a cumbersome
body. As you know, my own belief has always been that there should be one
commissioner, and with things as they are at present I would have him the
chief engineer of the commission, and then let him appoint his assistants — or
have me appoint them if necessary, tho my preference would be to have him
do so. 2 Always yours

4423 * TO FRANK PIERCE SARGENT Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, August 29 , 1907

My dear Mr. Sargent: I am greatly impressed by your report on the Japa-
nese. It is so important that I shall ask you to continue the same observations
for August and September so that I may have them sometime in October for
all these months. One thing is obvious, however, that we should stop at once,
and that is the transit of Japanese. The figures you give show that three
fourths of the Japanese who apply for transit thru the United States apply
in bad faith and really stay m the United States What arrangements do you
make for the transit of Chinamen > Would it not be well to undertake the
same arrangements for the transit of the Japanese^ Sincerely yours

1 A cable from Goethals giving the xecord-breaking dredging and excavation statis-
tics for August and Roosevelt’s congratulatory reply were published early m Sep-
tember This exchange of cables was planned m part to prepare Congress for a
request for an increase in appropriations which Goethals considered essential m the
rapid and efficient construction of the canal. For details see Canal Record , r 9-16
(September n, 1907).

3 This preference was embodied in an executive order issued January 6, 1908, which
completed the process of centralizing, within the framework of the seven-man
commission, the authority and responsibility for the canal in the hands of a single
executive

776

4424 * TO THEODORE ELIJAH BURTON

Personal

Roosevelt Mss
Oyster Bay, August 30, 1907

My dear Mr. Burton: You put a hard question to me in your letter to Mr.
Loeb. 1 There are certain qualities of leadership that you possess which could
not be supplied by anyone else m the House, and you have a mastery of cer-
tain subjects such as no other man m the House can hope to attain. For you
to leave the House, therefore, would mean that in certain lines of leadership
there would be a (distinct) loss that cannot be made up. I would therefore
be tempted to protest against your leaving, if it were not for my profound
conviction that (not only for the special reasons you give) it is exceedingly
desirable that you should win out as Mayor of Cleveland — and apparently
you are the only man who can — , and because of the fact that our demo-
cratic system has come nearest to breaking down in our cities, I feel that
it is of the utmost importance to have a man of your experience, power
and character, of your long training, theoretical and practical, in public life,
take such a position as that of the mayoralty. Accordingly, if you ask my
advice I should say make the fight.

With all good wishes, believe me, Faithfully yours

4425 • to james speyer Roosevelt Mss.

Private Oyster Bay, August 30, 1907

My dear Mr. Speyer: I am much interested m the editorial that you send me.
There has always been to me an element of comedy in accusing me of being
an anarchist (or something similar) for trying to put the railroads here m a
position which they have so long occupied in England.

Mr. Dooley was quite right in that famous remark of his. When we do
clean house we like to burn the house down.

It seems to me that to read the New York Sun , which is certainly a Wall
Street organ, is to become convinced that certain big financiers have delib-
erately courted disaster The Sun is the mouthpiece and organ of certain
men who do not want honesty and do not want observance of the law, who
would rather have disaster in the business world and unchecked demagogy
and corruption in the political world, than to have an orderly reign of just
law, because they have no scruples and a highly speculative temperament.

1 Burton had asked Roosevelt’s advice on the proposal of the Republican organiza-
tion m Cleveland that he run for mayor against Tom Johnson. This reply was pub-
lished Suspicious of the traction interests that controlled the party in the city. Burton
agreed to accept the nomination only after Roosevelt, Taft, and Garfield encouraged
him to do so. He insisted, moreover, that he select his ticket and run on a platform
giving him full discretion in traction matters. In spite of these concessions and Bur-
ton’s excellent personal reputation and aggressive campaign, he was defeated by
Johnson. There is an illuminating account of the campaign in Tom L Johnson, My
Story (New York, 1915), ch xxiv

777

They have neither the capacity nor desire to win reasonable amounts by
honest enterprise, and prefer to gamble for big stakes with loaded dice.

I look forward to seeing you in Washington when you return. Sincerely
yours

[Handwritten] The N Y. Times editorial of yesterday expressed the
hope for hard times so as to force the reversal of my policy. From hope, to
action which will make the hope good, is but a step.

4426 ■ to Joseph h. kibbey Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, August 31, 1907

My dear Governor Kibbey: Secretary Garfield has been to see me and has
reported to me in full the condition of affairs as he found them m Arizona
and New Mexico, and especially the attitude of the people of each Territory
toward the question of joint statehood. His report makes it evident to me, as
I was already prepared to believe, that the convictions of the people are set-
tled and will not change. Under these circumstances I shall take no further
action looking toward joint statehood for the two Territories.

You are at liberty to publish this letter. Sincerely yours

4427 • TO CHARLES SANGER MELLEN Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, August 31, 1907

My dear Mr. Mellen: I am sincerely obliged to you for your kind letter.
Confidentially, I will say that my present intention is to appoint Judge
Noyes, altho this is not to be taken as a promise or as a definite conclusion.
I thank Beach a little the better man, chiefly because I think he has an under-
standing of labor conditions and therefore is prepared to sympathize with
the labor people when they are right. I want to feel that a judge will liter-
ally be the judge for everyone, the judge for the laboring man and the judge
for the capitalist, that he will feel a sympathetic desire to do justice to each,
no less than a stem determination to exact justice from each. I have always
felt that if more capitalists, more big railroad men, would show the knowl-
edge of and sympathy with their labor people that you have shown, we
would have less difficulty in the way of conflict between big employeis and
their employees. Similarly, I wish a judge, and especially a Federal judge, to
always have the broad sympathy which would make him understand the
labor side. Take many of the highest judges, those of our Court of Appeals
in New York, for instance. They know nothing of labor people. They are
not brought into contact with them. They decide in what might be called
a spirit of academic Calvinism questions that are vital matters of real flesh
and blood to the labor people. I want to see Noyes soon and find out if I
can just whether he has this human side to him — this ability and desire to

778

do justice to the laboring man as much as to the capitalist. I hear very
highly of him. But of course I may appoint Beach. Sincerely yours

4428 * TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 2, 1907

Dear Cabot: I at once sent your letter to Newberry. I had already told him
that the Constitution ought not to be disposed of at present. Fra nkl y, I think
it ought to be at Annapolis, but it does not seem to me to be of enough con-
sequence to warrant a muss.

As for the campaign of the Sun, Times and World about the navy going
to the Pacific, I do not see much that they can do. My impression is that the
people as a whole have been extremely well pleased at my sending the fleet
to the Pacific, for a good many different reasons. I need hardly say to alter
the decision now would be ruinous Hale has been writing Newberry a se-
ries of bullying letters to which I have told Newberry to pay not the slight-
est heed Hale would like to introduce into our naval and military affairs a
system of supervision based upon the proceedings of the Aulic Council of
Vienna and flavored with the spirit of Moorfield Storey’s Anti-Imperialist
League, plus the heroism of the average New York financier.

Give my love to Nannie. Ever yours

4429 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, September 3, 1907

Dear Bonaparte: Of course I entirely approve of your telegram to Sims. It
is an annoying situation and we shall doubtless be violently attacked; but
after all, we are pretty well used to attacks by this time.

A correspondent from Missouri has just sent me an attack upon us as
being improperly friendly to the Standard Oil interests in certain matters!
I think we could safely interplead some of our accusers.

If the Judge does attack us, I suppose you will publish your previous
communication, and I should publish also any supplementary statement that
may be necessary. 1 What the supplementary statement will be must depend
upon what the public says, but it might be well to state, as you do in the
telegram, that no parts of the record were called to your attention that war-
ranted the statements in question.

With hearty regard. Faithfully yours

1 In spite of Bonaparte’s directive to Sims not to prosecute the Chicago and Alton
(see No. 4409), Judge Landis on September 3 ordered the special grand jury to re-
convene on September 24 and to continue its investigation of the rebate charges
against the Alton Roosevelt at once summoned the judge to Oyster Bay. There the
President convinced Landis of the wisdom of Bonaparte’s decision, see No. 4434.
Landis, therefore, instructed the grand jury when it reconvened that the Alton was
immune.

779

443 ° * to william Howard taft Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, September 3, 1907

Dear Will; Political affairs are kaleidoscopic. I do not suppose it would be
worth your while to have me bothering you with the constantly shifting
phases of the combat in the arena until you come back, but one or two mat-
ters make me feel that I ought to inflict one letter on you.

I had a very pleasant and what I regard as a very satisfactory talk with
Cortelyou the other day. He said frankly that he would like to be nominated
if the nomination came to him honorably and fairly, but that he did not
wish in any way to seem disloyal to me. I told him that no question of loy-
alty or disloyalty to me was involved in any way, shape or manner, and that
you and I and George Meyer had talked the matter over the other day, and
that you had exprest the heartiest good will and liking for him and had said
at once that he was entitled to haye his name considered if the people wanted
to consider it, Meyer and I both agreeing as a matter of course I told him
it was entirely needless for me to say how highly I regarded him, and how
sure I was that he would make a good President; that, as he knew, my feeling
was that we must take into account in the order of their importance, first,
whether the man would be a good President, next, whether he would be an
available candidate before the people; third, whether he could be nominated
by the convention. Taking into account all of these matters it was I said my
judgment that you at the present time seemed more likely than anyone else
to be the man upon whom it would be desirable to unite; but of course no
one could foretell the events of the next nine months, and that as the con-
vention came nearer it was always possible that I should have to alter my
judgment; and that not only I, but you to an even stronger degree, felt that
the first thing to be considered was the good of the nation and the next thing
the good of the party, and that any personal preference of me or of anyone
else, or personal ambitions by any possible candidate, must come in the third
place. He cordially and entirely agreed to what I had said, and I think he was
pleased with my account of your friendliness for him. He had evidently
been told that people close to you had been attacking him and saying
that he was intriguing against you, and I think it had hurt his feelings a
little. Without saying so explicitly, he gave me to understand that as things
were now if he were not to be the nominee he felt that you should be. He
specifically stated, for instance, that he regarded you as a very much broader,
abler and better man than Hughes

You saw my letter to William Allen White. I have received thru third
parties letters sent to these third parties by men m Washington and Colo-
rado who declared that they would be for you because I was so strongly
for you, but that they preferred to be for me and were not willing to be-
lieve that I could refuse a third term. Senator Bourne 1 has been writing me

Jonathan Bourne, Jr, Republican senator from Oregon, 1907-1913, former Repub-
lican national committeeman, 1888-1892, m 1911 an organizer and later the president

780

letters that I must accept, as has Senator Beveridge. Various men of promi-
nence in several States, but especially in Michigan and West Virginia, have
been stating that they were going to be for me anyhow, but that if I were
not a candidate they felt under no obligation to accept any advice from me
and would vote for whomever they chose. Finally, here in New York, as I
think I told you, the political leaders who at the moment are most strongly
inclined to be loyal to me and who therefore will when the time comes do
all they can for you, as they inform me, also represented to me in the strong-
est terms that it was impossible to hold the organization openly for you as
against Hughes. These men also said that it could not be held for Cortelyou
against Hughes, altho there was some Cortelyou sentiment. They told me
that if, for instance, they were to prevent an endorsement of Hughes by the
N. Y. State Committee (such as the State Committee of Ohio gave you) they
might have to do it on the plea that no one could yet tell whether or not it
might be not necessary to insist upon my being a candidate rather than some
reactionary, and that such being the case, it would not be wise for my own
State to put itself in a position where it could give me no assistance and they
may fail even in this movement. At the same time, certain of the Hughes
papers, like the New York Press , Sun and Evening Post which are of course
very bitter toward me, have been giving currency to a statement which I
am very glad to see them circulate, namely, that while it was known that
I would not accept the nomination if you could get it, there was apprehen-
sion lest I might accept it if Hughes’ nomination was threatened or the
nomination of any man whom I regarded as a reactionary and as hostile to
the policies in winch I believe. While my present feeling is very strongly
that I should not accept the nomination merely in order to beat Hughes or
Cannon or Knox (for I think Knox would make a good President, Cannon
a good one except on one or two lines, and Hughes a fair President altho
hampered by his petty narrowness and jealousies) yet I am not sorry that
the people here in the East — the big financiers and big politicians who are
most influential in politics, should get the idea that they may have to take
you rather than stand me. Of course, in a wayj to have it stated that I want
you to succeed me both hurts and helps you It helps you in the West It
hurts you among all the reactionary crowd, both the honest reactionaries
and the corrupt financiers and politicians in the East. As Mrs. Roosevelt said,
my effort at the moment is to be positive in my decimation in the West, and
delphic about it in the East, and to combine both attitudes and yet not be
hypocritical is sometimes a thought difficult 1 At the moment I think it would
help you m the West to have me again say with the utmost emphasis that
under no circumstances would I consent to be drafted in as a candidate; but
I am certain that it would hurt you in the East and I believe it would hurt
you m the South, where I think the big financial interests are busily at work
seeing what delegates they can purchase. Accordingly I have simply said

of the National Republican Progressive League, and, m that capacity, a strong ally

of La Follette

781

nothing, and this is for the moment, I am sure, the wisest course. There is
a strong feeling for Hughes, and I regard him as your most dangerous com-
petitor as things are now. He is an honest and able man, but neither in intel-
lect nor character is he for one moment to be compared to you, and in
experience he is just as inferior to you. In other words I simply cannot
understand how any patriotic and intelligent man can for a moment com-
pare the two of you. But the public is very shortsighted. It is interested in
things at home and not in the Philippines or the Canal, and accepts Hughes’
phrases and his gratuitous insults to reputable politicians like Herbert Parsons
as grounds for faith in him. I do not think he would be by any means as
good a President as, for instance, Knox, who has the extremely lawyer-like
mind which would make him as President treat the country as his client, with
as a result, I am inclined to believe, some very unpleasant surprises to the
wealthy men who now think he could be trusted to be their ally in the
White House. Moreover, Knox knows about .... the navy, foreign pol-
icy, .... and the like, all of them matters as to which Hughes has not any
knowledge whatever; ....

Meanwhile, on my own account I am a little nervous on just one point.
It is a matter of real difficulty to prevent certain people declaring for me.
By not continually reiterating the fact that I will not run, the number of
these people tends slightly to increase, and I am always afraid lest they put
me in the rather ridiculous position of seeming to want the nomination and
being disappointed at not getting it. Of course every effort will be made to
convict me of insincerity, double-dealing, self-seeking, and the like, and the
opposition press {will have to charge) .... two wholly incompatible of-
fenses, as, for instance, that I am trying to force you down the throats of a
reluctant people, and that at the same time I am merely using you as a stalk-
ing horse to gratify my own ambition.

I look forward with great interest to what you have to say about the
Philippines. Bishop Brent delivered a very foolish sermon about them. He
apparently (thought) said that we have erred greatly by going too fast in the
matter of giving them self-government and liberty, but he made his state-
ments with such looseness that they might be accepted by the anti-imperialist
crowd as prompted by the belief that we have not gone fast enough and
have denied to a worthy and capable people their proper rights.

Bonaparte has been doing well this summer under very singular circum-
stances, and the Wall Street papers hate him with a holy hatred.

I think your speeches have been eminently successful and that the effect
of your trip has been good in every way.

I wish I knew more about Root’s health. I am bothered about it. He has
not been able to do anything all summer long. Ever yours

782

443 1 * TO Arthur train Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 4, 1907

My dear Mr. Tram : 1 1 have enjoyed your book so much that I must write
to tell you so. I was a Police Commissioner myself for a couple of years and I
shall never forget my utter bewilderment at some of the trials when it was
simply out of the question for me to be sure that I was doing justice no mat-
ter which way I decided.

Is there any chance of your being in Washington next winter* If so,
especially if Mrs. Train is with you, please let me know. It will be such a
pleasure to have you lunch or dine at The White House. Sincerely yours

4432 * to henry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, September 4, 1907

Dear Cabot: Indeed I will care to quote that paragraph from Channing. I am
very much obliged to you for sending it to me. How interesting his com-
ment on your great grandfather was, and how many high-minded and valu-
able public servants we see today who damage themselves by substituting the
wisdom of experience for the wisdom of hope 1 1

I am also much interested in what Morton Crane said. 2 At least it is evi-
dent that my Provincetown speech did not ruin matters, for they have im-
proved steadily since. I do not think that this is a case of proctor hoc , but
it at least shows that the Sun, Times , Evening Post and company were wrong
as regards the influence they asserted it would have. Ever yours

P.S. Edith has just come in very much pleased, having had an expert out
to recork some of the Madeira which her grandfather left. As you know,
a good deal of it he brought over in 1816. The expert told Edith that he
knew of but two people who had as good cellars of Madeira, one being Mrs.
Cornelius Vanderbilt and the other (tell it not in Gath!) John Kean. The
worthy John, I doubt not, inherited it likewise; but Mrs. Vanderbilt’s grand-
father, if I am not greatly in error, would have preferred an inferior quality

1 Arthur Tram, in 1907 assistant district attorney of New York County, already suc-
cessful alike as prosecutor and author, had published one of his first books. The
Prisoner at the Bar , the previous year. Tram's stories, particularly the adventures
of the matchless Mr. Tutt whom he created a decade later, reveal his tolerant under-
standing of people and his exhaustive grasp of legal precedents and procedures.

1 In the Christian Examiner (May 1829) William Ellery Channing, after canvassing
the virtues of George Cabot, entered the following reservations . “He wanted a
just faith in man’s capacity of freedom, at least in that degree of it which our in-
stitutions suppose. He inclined to dark views of the condition and prospects of his
country. He had too much the wisdom of experience. He wanted what may be called
the wisdom of hope.” — The Works of William E. Charming , DJD (Boston, 1862),
I, 365.

a Morton Crane, Massachusetts Republican, “absolutely safe and loyal” to Lodge and
Roosevelt, m 1908 secretary of the Immigration Commission.

783

of gin, and I think in her case the Madeira has been acquired and not in-
herited.

P.P.S. I had sent Taft a copy of your speech and he writes me about it
as follows:

I have your letter of August 22, enclosing Lodge’s speech I agree with you
that it is a most admirable statement, beautifully phrased and forcibly put, of the
necessity for a written constitution and a strong plea, made stronger by its
reasonableness, sanity and liberality, for the policy obsta prmctpiis. The union of
good sense and literary beauty and taste makes it a delight to read it.

4433 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, September 5, 1907

Dear Will: Many thanks for your two letters, and especially for the long and
interesting one about your trip. I think your chances are improving every
day, and Loeb’s judgment, which in politics is that of an expert, is to the
same effect.

I shall have to be a little cautious about the removal of Franks. 1 * When I
return to Washington I shall see Capers and find out just what we can do.
I took the liberty of sending the first paragraph of your letter to Lodge,
As for the Philippines, I shall do nothing until your return, but really I
do not intend to do much more then state what you say you will state to
the Filipinos themselves.

At the moment the attack of the high financiers on me takes the shape
of objection to the fleet going to the Pacific. But I am commander in chief!
Faithfully youis

[Handnmitten] The enclosed is characteristic of Littauer. Foraker re-
cently told a man named John A. Logan Campbell that in the final round-up
they would all rally round Hughes. Another reason why we should not let
Cortelyou think that we are engaged in any raid on him 1

4434 * TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 6, 1907

Dear Bonaparte: How about the Oklahoma gerrymander P What facts are
shown 13 If there is really a bad gerrymander, I think that justifies, and indeed
requires, our insisting upon a remodeling of the constitution 1

Today I saw Judge Landis. He came out here to lunch He has the face

1 Herbert M Franks was the engineer-] amtor in charge of the federal couit house
and post office at Charleston, South Carolina, a post m which he could exercise con-
siderable local political influence through the charmen he appointed and supervised
A Treasury employee, Franks was suspected of working for the nomination of Cor-
telyou. He was not removed.

1 When the census did not reveal a glaring gerrymander, Roosevelt accepted the

constitution.

784

of a fanatic — honest, fearless, well-meaning, but tense to a degree that makes
me apprehensive lest it may presage a nervous breakdown. He insisted that
the railroads threw the case, and that they were deliberately trying to save
the Standard Oil, relying upon the promise of the Government to save them-
selves, so that the whole proceeding would come to naught and we w r ouId be
objects of derision. He said that Sims and Wilkerson 2 m their summing up
speeches denounced the railroad employees as hostile witnesses, while he
insisted that their untruthfulness, or rather perjury, was flagrant. I stated
that we could not possibly go back on our word, that we could not repudiate
any agreement that Morrison had made or do anything that had even a color
of breach of faith on our part. He agreed with me entirely, but he insisted
that not merely one railroad witness, but witness after witness, day after day,
came forward on behalf of the railroad and delivered testimony obviously in
bad faith for the purpose of protecting the Standard Oil people. He said that
all he desired was that a full record with all these cases be presented to the
Department of Justice, and that he had asked them to see that this was done.
I told him I would write you, but entirely confidentially, so that his name
should not appear, and that I took it for granted that Sims would have pre-
sented to you the case. Is there any use of withholding our action until the
Appellate Court acts^ Faithfully yours

4435 * to whitelaw reid Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 6, 1907

My dear Mr. Ambassador • You are very good to keep in mind such purely
personal matters as those affecting Swinburne and Oliver m the midst of
your other work. Curiously enough, I had already heard from young Trevel-
yan about Swinburne. The poem is m his Songs Before Sunrise , which
contains one other that I particularly care for. That poem of his you enclose
shows that to be an old gentleman and a nervous wreck fails to render him
a particle less effervescent and anarchistic than he was in his youth.

I have been greatly concerned about Root this year. The newspaper
reports are of course simple sensationalism, but his condition has been far
from satisfactory. I trust he will be able to visit Diaz, as he proposes; and
then this winter, if I can only get him to turn over the smaller matters more
completely to Bacon, who has done admirably, I think he can get thru all
right. I earnestly desire his personal attention to the details of the New-
foundland arbitration. How curious the conduct of the British Government
was m that matter* I am particularly interested m the sketch you give of the
reputations won and the successes and failures on both sides in the session of
Parliament that has just closed. Faithfully yours

a James Herbert Wilkerson, special assistant United States attorney, had assisted

Sims in the Standard Oil rebate case

785

44 3 6 • to Caspar whitney Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 7, 1907

Dear Whitney: Was it not Dr. Johnson who responded, when asked why he
had done such-and-such a thing, “Forgetfulness, man, simply forgetfulness "
Various people have asked me why certain other names were not on the
“roll of honor.” .... Yours ought to have been, and it will go on the roll in
the article when it appears in the next volume of my speeches and messages,
to be issued several months hence. 1 I have just instructed Mr. Loeb to this
effect.

I thought I had already told you that the reason these statements of mine
appeared in Everybody's Magazine was purely due to the accident of one
reporter, Clark, being a naturalist and feeling as strong about Long and Com-
pany as I did. 2 The Scribner’s, Century, and Outlook are very old friends of
mine, for whom I have written in the past and whom I have sometimes
promised articles literally several years in advance. You can have no idea
what a multitude of requests I receive to write, and how many, many maga-
zines and periodicals make complaints similar to yours. I hope you now
understand the situation. Faithfully yours

4437 • TO JOHN ST. LOE STRACHEY Roosevelt MsS.

Oyster Bay, September 8, 1907

My dear Strachey: I was greatly interested in both the Spectator editorial on
my speech and your article on socialism, and I was even more pleased with
your letter. It is curious how exactly you and I agree on most of the great
questions which are fundamentally the same in both countries. Recently you
had an editorial on the attitude of the Pacific Slope people on the incoming
of the Japanese, showing how like it was to the attitude of Australia and
British Columbia; and moreover, how, at bottom, the attitude was the proper
attitude, in spite of the folly and wickedness which marred it This editorial
of yours put the case as well as it could possibly be put. You said exactly
what I think ought to have been said.

1 Caspar Whitney was rueful because Roosevelt had failed to include his name in the

article, cited below, as one of a group of scientists to whom “we owe a real debt”
The piece of forgetfulness was rectified m the printed volume
“In September, Roosevelt published his famous attack on “Nature Fakeis” m Evciy-
body’s Magazine For the previous four months he had been building up to this
climax by wilting testier and testier letters on the subject to Burroughs, Osborn,
and George Shiras, son of the Supreme Court Justice and a very careful photogra-
pher of mammals. In the article itself he assaulted all nature fakeis who, like the
WTute Queen, “can easily believe three impossible things before breakfast,” but he
singled out Ius favorite target of Mr. Long as the “most leckless and least respon-
sible ”

786

So with what you say on socialism and on uncontrolled plutocracy. I
expect all lands of checks, rebuffs, and delays in the fight, but I am confident
that it will be substantially won in the end; for if it is not won, and if we
surrender either to the socialistic party or to an unbridled plutocracy, then
democratic self-government is over. Have you seen de La Gorce’s History of
the Second Republic of France^ It should be illuminating to all who believe
in national workshops, national employment for the unemployed; and it
shows where such doctrines would lead us. I have reserved judgment on the
question of old-age pensions, simply because I would like to know what the
actual system is in New Zealand and Denmark and how it works. Haven’t
they got it in Germany also?

In the Provmcetown speech I spoke of the socialist, as you probably saw.

I have been very careful never to say anything that could be construed into
an attack upon rich men without coupling it with an attack upon the same
type of criminal who is poor. The one lesson most necessary to be taught
m both our countries is that of judging the man of either type on his conduct,
without regard to his wealth or poverty.

You rather alarm me in what you say as to the socialistic rise in England.
We shall have it also in this country, for it is evident that the movement is
going on thruout the western world. It is an interesting and curious thing that
Australia, markedly better off in some governmental and social matters than
is the United States, should be worse off in other ways, especially in the size
of its socialistic party, and in the extraordinary condition of things which
has resulted m the birth rate becoming very small while immigration is for-
bidden. If the rate of increase m Australia continues no greater than in the
past ten years, it would be the end of this century before Australia has
doubled in population. Under such circumstances the yellow peril which they
dread might be a very real peril indeed for them. Where their birth rate is so
low they should encourage in every way the kind of immigration that they
can assimilate and digest.

I do hope that Mrs. Strachey and you will again visit us at The White
House before we leave. Faithfully yours

[. Handwritten ] Indeed, my dear fellow, I understood completely about
how you felt in your terrible bereavement; all I wrote for, was so that you
should know our deep and sincere sympathy with you and ^specially with
Mrs Strachey.

P.S. Since dictating the above, news has come of the race riots in Van-
couver . 1 This shows once again how like the problems are that our two
countries have to meet — and incidentally, like the San Francisco affair, it

1 The Vancouver riot of September 7, exceeding in size and severity the anti-Japanese
demonstrations by Californians, “shocked, humiliated, and surprised” the British, par-
ticularly those who had been “slightly hypocritical” toward the policies of the Amer-
ican government, see Bailey, Roosevelt and the Japanese-A?nencan Crises , pp. 252-
254.

787

gives the chance for narrow-minded people of both countries to indulge in
Pharisaical self-glorification, each at the expense of the other. Yours is really
a federal empire, just as ours is a federal republic. There are even greater
difficulties attendant in your case upon the central government acting deci-
sively and quickly when the misdeeds are committed by or m one of the
provinces, than is the case with our central government when similar mis-
deeds occur in one of the states. The Vancouver mob is not as dangerous as
the San Francisco mob, but it seems to have got out of hand in a way that
hitherto the San Francisco mob never has gotten. All such disorders must be
punished rigorously; but it is idle to blind ourselves to the fact that the
English-speaking commonwealths of the seacoasts on the Pacific will not
submit to the unchecked immigration of Asiatics, that they ought not to be
asked to submit to it, and that if asked they will refuse.

4438 * TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER Roosevelt MSS .

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1907

My dear President Wheeler : I have decided to appoint Mr Merrill to the
post office, but the appointment may of necessity only be temporary. 1 There
is no use of sending in his name to the Senate if the Senators are going to
reject him If Congressman Knowland, who objected to him, had proposed
some unobjectionable third party, I should have appointed him; but he did
not, and simply insisted upon the appointment of his original nominee. So I
have appointed Merrill, but I want it understood that it may not be possible
for me to send in his name for the peimanent appointment to the Senate.
Much will depend upon what I can gather as to the real sentiment of the
people best qualified to speak in the territory served by the post office. You
have no conception how difficult it is for me from this distance to judge what
the real feelings are. My personal knowledge of you and Heney enabled me
to act as I have done in this case, but I wish to reiterate that Thomas ap-
parently had as fine a set of recommendations as any man could have* Faith-
fully yours

[Handvrritten] Do let your community speak out, emphatically.

P.S. The ^enclosed letter, which has just come, explains itself. Please treat
it as absolutely confidential. It shows how far-reaching a case like this may be.
I of course assume that you and those who have acted with you will be able
to give me some strong facts which will justify my having turned down
Thomas. I do not want to feel that I have jeopardized the selection of Taft

Clarence S Merrill was appointed postmaster at Berkeley, California Strongly rec-
ommended by Heney and Wheeler, Merrill was as strongly opposed by Congressman
Joseph K Knowland and the Taft leaders in the state. Over his selection, therefore,
Roosevelt wavered He sent Merrill’s name to the Senate m December, withdrew it
two weeks later, but resubmitted it in February. The appointment was then con-

788

delegates without ample reason. The Taft people have been very urgent that
I should appoint Thomas. As I need not say, it is very unwise to let this fight
m any way or shape rest upon factional preference, or upon a preference
between two good men. Do get me the facts about Thomas in some shape
that I can make public, and backed up by as many high-grade citizens as
possible. Surely there should be enough Republicans of influence to make
Knowland and the others appreciate their position, unless they are unwise
enough to make him think that they are simply engaged in a factional effort
to discredit him and that the appointment of the postmaster is purely to
influence the primaries. From what you say about Merrill I should suppose
that he could himself convince Knowland that he was not his foe, would not
in any way use the post office against him and would simply try by being
a good postmaster to be of benefit to the Republican party.

4439 * to Joseph bucklin bishop Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, September 1 1, 1907

Dear Bishop: Many thanks for your letter. I think Colonel Goethals was most
wise to have you come to the Isthmus, for now you can put everything be-
fore me at length and it is of real help to me thus to have it I agree with you
in all that you say. Stevens had done admirable work, but what has occurred
since his departure shows that it was time for him to go, that his usefulness
was at an end, and that he could not do the remaining part of the job. Evi-
dently Goethals is just the man for it. Jackson Smith has done good work,
and I am suie the Colonel will give him an absolutely fair chance. If he does
well and acts m entire harmony with the Colonel, he will stay; otherwise, he
will not. I shall back up the Colonel on all points. 1

I have written pretty sharply to Herbert Parsons about that Republican
Club action The man who signs the report is the same man who got the
club to pass the resolution condemning us over the Brownsville business. Of
course the report is simply put up by Lindon Bates. 2 * *

That is an excellent and interesting paper, The Canal Record .

Now won’t you as soon as you can send to me a not too long rough draft
of what you would like me to say about the canal in my annual message 5
Show it to Colonel Goethals for his vise before sending it. Faithfully yours

1 As Colonel Goethals found it increasingly difficult to work with the competent but

temperamental chief of the canal’s department of labor, quarters and subsistence,
Roosevelt asked for Smith’s resignation m July 1908. .

2 The Republican Club had issued a pamphlet written in part by Bates and signed

by George S Humphrey criticizing both the management and engineering policies
of the Canal Commission. Bates had aggressively disapproved of the Administrations

work in Panama since the rejection m 1905 of his “three-lock” plan for the construc-

tion of the canal

789

444 ° • T0 HENRY CABOT LODGE

Roosevelt Mss .
Oyster Bay, September n, 1907

Dear Cabot : Thank you for calling my attention to the Fort Riley business. I
shall immediately call for a full report on the affair. 1 It had not been brought
to my notice before.

I have had precisely the same feeling you have had over the Vancouver
incident It is only a few months since the English papers were commenting
with complacency upon the bad effects of the federal Constitution of our
Republic, the lawlessness of the national character, and contrasting it with
the British Empire. Now a much worse outbreak has occurred in Vancouver
than anything that has occurred in San Francisco. It will do good in two
ways. In the first place it will bring sharply home to the British public the
fact that the British commonwealths along the Pacific will take precisely the
same attitude as the American States along the Pacific; and m the next place,
it will bring Japan toward a realization of the fact that in this matter she will
have to face the same feeling in the British Empire which she does in the
American Republic. Of course in San Francisco and California alike the
action of the mobs (is) indefensible, and I prevented such outrages as oc-
curred in Vancouver by the fact that I was much quicker to take preventive
steps than the British officials were; but the attitude which is back of the
movement is in each case sound. Ever yours

[. Handwritte?i ] It seems to me that m the Newfoundland business the
amiable Bond has again given us a certificate of competency. 2

4441 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSCVelt MSS.

Strictly Confidential Oyster Bay, September 12, 1907

Dear Will: I call attention to the marked portion of the enclosed editorial. I
am glad to see that I still have a patent on certain social, artistic, scientific,

1 “Radical innovations m organization and policy” at the Mounted Service School
embodied in a general order of September 13, 1907, had disrupted the post routine
at Fort Riley The resentment attending these changes was so gieat it provoked the
revocation of the order and the retncment of the innovator, Brigadier General
Edward S. Godfrey. His successor, John B Kerr, with more tact and less abrupt-
ness carried out most of Godfrey’s plans to modernize the organization and curricu-
lum. See War Department , Annual Reports , 1908, IV, 124-125.

2 Sir Robert Bond, the Newfoundland Premier, was protestmg the British agreement
to submit to arbitration the Newfoundland fisheries problem. Great Britain, he ar-
gued, could not submit colonial statutes to the arbitrament of any body of men He
protested further against the modus operandi covering the fisheries problem until
such time as the Hague Tribunal could solve it. By that agreement, Bond contended,
the Crown had suspended unconstitutionally a Newfoundland statute. Involving, as
they did, matters or constitutional importance to the British dominions, Bond’s argu-
ments won much favor m Canada But in spite of the legal strength and the popular-
ity of his position, he was unable to affect the modus operandi , or, ultimately, to
prevent the arbitration

790

literary and other issues, which patent is not to be infringed by my successor
in the White House!

Hurrah for the mollycoddles! Ever yours

P.S. There are signs that a campaign is being prepared against you on
account of the payment by the Government of large sums of money for
your traveling expenses. They can do nothing whatever against you as re-
gards your traveling expenses while you are visiting the Philippines or Pan-
ama. But it is just the kind of accusation which has an extraordinary influence
with foolish voters, and in this particular situation you and Charley had far
better pay any expenses within the United States for any trip which they can
even assert to be political, rather than have them paid out of the Government
appropriation. Remember that every detail of your expenses will be treated
as a campaign document; and, as I found out in connection with my traveling,
it is not only necessary to do just exactly what is right, but to do it so that
the knaves cannot mislead the fools into believing it to be wrong. The Hearst
people are preparing a campaign along these lines, and have written a letter
to the Auditor, a copy of which I enclose. To avoid trouble of just this kind,
we were careful to keep account of our postage stamps, not only during the
campaign but at all times It is ridiculous small matters like this that some-
times make the most trouble.

4442 * TO LAWRENCE FRASER ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 13, 1907

My dear Abbott: The two letters and two telegrams about the Standard Oil
Company were sent to you for your own information merely, but looking
over them they appear to be pretty good stuff, not alone with reference to
this specific thing, but as to my general attitude. 1 Of course make no ref-
erence of any kind to these letters or telegrams.

Now, as to your questions-

(1) The fleet will be composed of sixteen battleships, which will be
joined by two others now on the Pacific coast It will be met at San Francisco
by eight armored cruisers. Six torpedo-boat destroyers will also go to San
Francisco from the Atlantic coast, altho not at the same time.

(2) The torpedo vessels will leave about the 1st of December; the battle-
ships shortly afterwards. The armored cruisers are on their way now.

(3) The battleships will stop to coal at three or four places in South
America, and somewhere for thirty days’ target practice. They will make
no special hurry. I cannot give the exact date of their arrival in San Francisco.

1 The New York World , exploiting the Roosevelt-Harnman correspondence, had
raised again the question of contributions to the Republican campaign fund of i9°4
by corporations, particularly the Standard Oil Company. In reply to Abbott s inquiry
about this matter, Roosevelt had sent him copies of his messages to Cortelyou direct-
ing the return of Standard Oil contributions.

79 1

(4) The battleships will contain some twelve thousand officers and men,
the armored cruisers half as many more.

(j) Cruisers and the like will be left in the Atlantic, but the only battle-
ships will be four that are being repaired and cannot leave at this moment.

(6) If this enterprise is earned out it will represent a far longer cruise
than has ever been made in modern times by a battleship fleet of even half
the strength.

(7) It is a cardinal point of my policy that the battleship fleet, the back-
bone of the fighting force of the navy, shall always be kept as a unit, whether
in Atlantic or Pacific waters. If it is m the Atlantic when a war breaks out
with a Pacific power, it would have to go to the Pacific. If it is in the Pacific,
it will have to go to the Atlantic. It will in neither ocean, however, be used to
protect the shipping and the ports save by striking at the enemy’s fleet. We
have, unfortunately, very little shipping, save m the coast trade, and of course
it would be an utter absurdity to use battleships to protect fleets of coasting
schooners. Ports must be protected by fortifications, mines, torpedoes, tor-
pedo boats etc. The object of forts is to leave the fleet foot-lose, and normally
it represents literally the destruction of the navy to try to use it to protect
ports It means that it would be scattered piecemeal along the coast, to be
picked up m detail by any respectable-sized opponent. I doubt if I would say
much about this seventh question of yours, for it may give an alarmist tone to
the article. Our relations with all European powers are so good that it seems
m the highest degree unlikely that trouble will occur pending the absence of
the fleet; and it might well be that if it did occur, the fleet could get into
the Atlantic for action almost as quickly as if it were in home waters. I could
not send it to the Pacific at a better time, and as it must either be in the
Pacific or the Atlantic — both, remember, home waters — wherever it is
there is always the chance that war may break out on the other ocean. That
chance exists now as regards the Pacific, when the fleet is m the Pacific it
will exist (as it does now) as regards the Atlantic. But it is a mighty small
chance. Faithfully yours

4443 • TO EMILY TYLER CAROW Roosevelt MSS.

Oyster Bay, September 13, 1907

Dear Emily: Would it bother you to execute a commission for me 3 I have
been greatly interested in the History of Rome, during the last days of the
Republic and the beginning of the Empire, by an Italian scholar, Ferrero. 1
It is called, I think, The Greatness arid Decline of Rome . It is so good that
I should like to possess it in the original. I think there are three or four vol-
umes. Would it inconvenience you to bring it over to me 33

1 Gughelmo Ferrero, The Greatness and Decline of Rome , 5 vols (New York, 1907-
1909), originally published as Grandezza e Decadenza di Roma (Milano, 1902-1907)

792

We are looking forward eagerly to your visit.

We are passing our last days at Oyster Bay. Next Tuesday, Archie, who
has grown very much stronger this summer, starts for Groton with Kermit.
Kermit has just come back from a trip on horseback with Fitzhugh Lee and
the Thirteenth Cavalry, and from a shooting trip. He brought back a hamper
of game of his own shooting — prairie chickens, ducks, and vemson.

Ted has just returned from a visit to John Green way, in Minnesota, on
business, this having reference to his future career. Ethel has been having a
house party, and they have all been enjoying themselves in a delirious manner.

Yesterday we all had a picnic at Jayne’s Hill Always yours

4444 * to john muir Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, September 16, 1907

My dear Mr. Muir: I gather that Garfield and Pinchot are rather favorable
to the Hetch Hetchy plan, but not definitely so. I have sent them your letter
with a request for a report upon it. 1 I will do everything in my power to
protect not only the Yosemite, which we have already protected, but other
similar great natural beauties of this country, but you must remember that it
is out of the question permanently to protect them unless we have a certain
degree of friendliness toward them on the pan of the people of the State in
■which they are situated; and if they are used so as to interfere with the
permanent material development of the State instead of helping the per-
manent material development, the result will be bad. I -would not have any
difficulty at all if, as you say, nine tenths of the citizens took ground against
the Hetch Hetchy project, but so far everyone .... has been for it and I
have been in the disagreeable position of seeming to interfere with the devel-
opment of the State for the sake of keeping a valley, which apparently hardly
anyone wanted to have kept, under national control.

I wish I could see you in person, and how I do wish I were again with you
camping out under those great sequoias or in the and under the silver firs.
Faithfully yours

4445 • to Joseph bucklin bishop Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 16, 1907

My dear Bishop: I will keep both your letters of the 6th and 9th entirely con-
fidential, but tell Goethals, for me, to go ahead and prepare the governorship

1 Muir had written Roosevelt protesting against San Francisco’s plan to convert the
Hetch Hetchy valley, “a wonderfully exact counterpart of the great Yosemite,” into
a reservoir Although Roosevelt later supported Muir’s views, the pressing needs of
the city to utilize its most advantageous water site ultimately defeated Muir’s per-
sistent and aggressive efforts to prevent the inundation of the valley.

793

business as he desires, making Blackburn Governor, and I will promulgate the
proclamation in the absence of Taft 1 Ever yours

444 6 * TO LAWRENCE FRASER ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 17, 1907

My dear Abbott: I have your letter of the 16th instant The reason I do not
want any public use made of those letters and telegrams of mine is because
from conversations I had with Mr. Bliss after the election I gathered the
impression that while the contributions from the corporation were either re-
turned or not received, contributions from individuals who were connected
with that particular corporation and also with many other corporations 'were
received, if not for my campaign, then for the State or congressional cam-
paigns. When I see you again, or see your father, I will give you in detail the
conversations I had with Mr. Bliss and Senator Knox. Faithfully yours

4447 * TO EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 19, 1907

My dear Mr. Ross: 1 If I did what I ought to do I suppose I should refuse to
write the preface, for I fear that I will begin to look like a general “Meddle-
some Mattie” as regards subjects of this nature. However, I so thoroly believe
in you and your work that I have written the enclosed. 1 2 I am up to my ears
on my message, in writing out the speeches I am to make, and attending to
the thousand things, big and little, of my office and I have not time to do
more. I have put it in the form of a letter because it seems to me that to, do
so relieves a little of the assumption of wisdom on my part which a preface
proper would imply; and moreover it is better for me, because I have so often
refused to write prefaces.

Let me know if the letter is what you desire.

Is not the name a little bizarre for a work as serious as this* Somehow or
other it strikes me as if it were a little “yellow,” a little like the title of one of
Dr. Parkhurst’s sermons. “Smokeless Sm” is I am sure not a dignified title for
a serious work like this. Sincerely yours

1 Joseph Clay Styles Blackburn, canal commissioner and ex-senator fiom Kentucky,
was not proclaimed governor As head of the commission’s department of civil affairs,
however, he relieved Goethals, the Zone’s official governor, of the details of civil ad-
ministration

1 Edward Alsworth Ross, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, a
pioneer investigator and prolific writer m his field

2 The enclosed was a prefatory letter (see No. 4448), for Ross’ Sin and Society .

794

444 s * TO edward alsworth ross Roosevelt Mss „

Oyster Bay, September 19, 1907

My dear Professor Ross: It was to Justice Holmes that I owed the pleasure
and profit of reading your book on Social Control . The Justice spoke of it
to me as one of the strongest and most striking presentations of the subject
he had ever seen. I got it at once and was deeply interested in it. Since then
I have read whatever you have written. I have been particularly pleased with
the essays which, as you tell me, you are now to publish in permanent form.
You define “sin” as conduct that harms another in contradistinction to “vice”
by which we mean practices that harm one's self; and you attack as they
should be attacked the men who at the present day do more harm to the body
politic by their sinning than all others. With almost all that you write I am
in full and hearty sympathy. As you well say, if a ring is to be put in the
snout of the greedy strong only organized society can do it. You war against
the vast iniquities m modern business, finance, politics, journalism, due to
the ineffectiveness of public opimon in coping with the dominant type of
wrongdoing in a huge, rich, highly complex industrial civilization like ours.
You show that the worst evils we have to combat have inevitably evolved
along with the evolution of society itself and that the perspective of conduct
must change from age to age, so that our moral judgment may be recast in
order more effectively to hold to account the really dangerous foes of our
present civilization. You do not confine yourself to mere destructive criti-
cism. Your plea is for courage, for uprightness, for farseeing sanity, for active
constructive work. There is no reason why we should feel despondent over
the outlook of modern civilization, but there is every reason why we should
be fully alert to the dangers ahead. Modern society has developed to a point
where there is real cause for alarm lest we shall go the way of so many ancient
communities, where the state was brought to ruin because politics became the
mere struggle of class against class. Your book is emphatically an appeal for
the general sense of right as opposed to mere class interests. As you put it,
the danger is as great if the law is twisted to be an instrument of the greed of
one class as if it is twisted to be an instrument of the vengefulness of another.
You reject that most mischievous of socialist theses, the attempt to secure
progress by the strife of classes. You insist, as all healthy-minded patriots
should insist, that public opimon, if only sufficiently enlightened and aroused,
is equal to the necessary regenerative task and can yet dominate the future.
Your book is wholesome and sane and I trust that its influence will be wide-
spread. Sincerely yours

795

4449 * T0 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT RoOSCVelt MSS .

Personal Oyster Bay, September 19, 1907

Dear Will: It seems to me you said just what ought to have been said on the
labor business. 1 No ordinary candidate would venture to say what you do,
but you are not an ordinary candidate; and I believe that your courage, your
entire willingness to sacrifice your own interests for a principle, and the
instinctive feeling that everyone must have as to your utter disinterestedness,
are the qualities which (taken together with the fact that your ability and
«expenence» put you head and shoulders to the front of all other possible
candidates) will force your nomination. My temptation is always to write
you the gloomy side, because I really believe I am quite as nervous about your
campaign as I should be if it were my own. I want you to avoid staying with
private individuals in the future. Go to a hotel and give everybody a fair
show at you. Also, while I immensely admire your courage, don’t talk on
delicate subjects where there is a chance of twisting your words, unless it
becomes necessary. You see, you have often preached caution to me, and now
I am having my revenge!

I am glad you so clearly see the situation about Hughes He is a man
who has very distinct strength with the people, and in addition, all of the
interests of any kind that are antagonistic to you and to me will join m behind
him. The anti-imperialists of every grade are with him with a whoop, be-
cause they think that he knows nothing about the Philippines or the army or
navy, and that he is against them all. The big corporations are for him be-
cause they believe that, tho honest, he is jealous and narrow, and that in his
great anxiety not to have things done so as to look as if he were continuing
my policy, he would succeed m so upsetting that policy as in effect to bring it
to a halt. Wall Street, the Sun , the Evening Post , the mugwumps, the big
corporations, all will be for him. It may be that we shall have to take just the
course you mention m your second letter, that is, have me repeat my decima-
tion, and have the fight come square between him and you, but if I had
done that before, New York would have declared for him by this time,
whereas, under the existing circumstances, I think w r e can prevent the State
Committee from making any declaration, and it is a gam to put off the
movement as long as possible so as to prevent any effect 111 other States.

I hear exactly what you do as to the feeling m the East. My belief is that
you will get a majority of the delegates on the first roll call. Hughes is the
one man whom I can see that they may combine on. Senator Hopkins, for
instance, told me that while he was for Cannon, he could not be for Knox
because he could not carry Illinois. I cannot help feeling that Cortelyou will

1 At Seattle on September 9 Taft referred in the Rooseveltian manner to the rights

of the laboring man and labor unions on the one hand, and, on the other, to their

obligations

796

see that his candidacy is impossible. In New England I think that the people
generally have definitely accepted me as out of the race and by a substantial
majority are for you as against anyone else, Hughes being second choice.
Senator Fulton has written me flat that he is for you and that Oregon will be
for you.

As for the Berkeley post office, there is very bitter protest against Thomas
by very good men, and what looks like conclusive evidence that as Town
Clerk he made the most unsatisfactory record of any man who ever held
that office; that his neglect of his duties reached such a senous stage that the
Board of Trustees had to appoint another man as assistant at a salary of fifty
dollars per month, with the understanding that Thomas would pay him
twenty-five dollars extra out of his own salary, and that the assistant should
do his, Thomas’s, work. Since then he endeavored to defeat the Republican
nominee for justice of the peace in the interest of the liquor sellers, who
desired to sell liquor within a mile of the University of California. I am sure
it would not have been well to appoint him when his record is of this type.

By the way, you are going to get one delegate from New York anyhow.
Loeb has fixt things so that he will go as one of the two delegates from this
Congressional district. I have felt and he has felt, that it would be very im-
portant to have him at the convention, because when he speaks for me we
get all the effect of an authoritative statement on my part with none of the
attendant disagreeable features. The New York papers seem to me almost
insane in reference to my actions. But then perhaps I am not competent to
judge; for they eulogize me m terms which imply that Judas Iscariot and
Benedict Arnold were pretty good citizens by comparison 1 The big corpo-
ration men have gotten into a condition of senseless folly which makes them
feel that I am to be antagonized even when I stand for their interests. It is
eminently for their interests that the Nation and not the States should deal
with them, but when I say this they cannot resist the temptation to yell
about States’ rights. They are violently opposing the fleet’s going to the
Pacific. Give my warm regards to Mrs. Taft. Always yours

4450 • TO NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER Roosevelt MSS.

Private Oyster Bay, September 20, 1907

Dear Murray: I was sorry not to see you, as there is much to talk about. For
some time I have been sure that we were going ta have a period of contrac-
tion m business. The utter recklessness of the financial world, and the worse
than recklessness of its most eminent leaders, the Rockefellers, Harrimans,
and the like, rendered this absolutely inevitable. The trouble that they are
now having over copper, the trouble that they have had over the Inter-
borough Railroad, are perfectly typical of the business operations that have

797

Hone most to bring about the revulsion. 1 I am inclined to doubt whether
there will be anything like a panic, and of course no one can say exactly how
far things will go. There is one thing that I can say, however. The Post,
Times, Sun, Harper’s Weekly, and all the rest of the papers that find their
inspiration among the worst elements of Wall Street, may as well make up
their minds that the policies for which I stand have come to stay. Not only
will I not change them, but in their essence they will not be changed by any
man that comes after me, unless the reactionaries should have their way and
produce a temporary reversal, in which case we should see a far more drastic
and therefore undesirable action after the brief period of reaction had spent
itself. I am amused at the shortsighted folly of the very wealthy men, and
I am deeply concerned to find out how large a proportion of them stand for
what is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest. Every year that I have lived
has made me a firmer believer m the plain people — in the men who gave
Abraham Lincoln his strength — and has made me feel more distrust of the
overeducated dilettante type for whom the Evening Post speaks, and, above
all, of the plutocratic type represented by the Sun, Times and the rest. In
my judgment the one way in which we can be absolutely certain of getting
bad times is to have the Republican party undertake to revise the tariff next
winter. If we had meddled with the tariff before this we should have had
bad times already. If we escape a panic now, as I hope and believe we shall,
the present check will be ultimately a benefit; and then, immediately after
the next election, I think the Republican party should undertake the revision
— not that there is any great need of it, but because public sentiment de-
mands it. Sincerely yours

4451 - TO ANNA CABOT MILLS LODGE Roosevelt Mss.

Oyster Bay, September zo, 1907

Dear Nannie: Quentin is devoted to his little Canadian governess, who has
been m Quebec this summer, and he writes her frequently in French — that
is, in what, by an elastic construction of the word, can be called French. His
letters are purely off his own bat and neither instigated nor supervised by
anybody. The other day he brought me one to address and post, and without

1 The financial practices and corporate structure of both the copper industry and the
New York City transit companies revealed American business at its worst. Although
previously publicized in Lawson’s Frenzied Finance , the irresponsible stockjobbing
of the “copper kings” m the fall of 1907 shocked Wall Street and Main Street alike.
The collapse of the Hemze copper comer m October provided a major precipitant
to panic. (See No. 4400, note 2). At the same time the investigation by the Public
Service Commission of rapid transit conditions in New Yoik City revealed the finan-
cial arrangements by which the Interboiough Metropolitan Company, a large holding
company controlled by the Whitney-Ryan group, dominated the transit system. The
inquiry demonstrated also that the confused and corrupt relations of the different
transit companies m the New York area seriously damaged the efficiency of surface
and underground transit services.

798

his knowledge I made a copy of it which I enclose. Will you send it back
after you have read it ?

Edith is now putting up the house, and we feel a little melancholy, as
we always do when the summer is over. I suppose I shall have an awful time
with Congress this winter. But the summer has been very pleasant and satis-
factory for all the children. Ted has circulated somewhat irrelevantly from
Beverly to northern Minnesota. He will try to get thru college in three years
so that next summer he can go to work, just before he is twenty-one. I shall
be glad if he can do this, for I do not see that there is anything more that
he can get out of college. He has had a very good time, as I of course wish
him to have, and he is mature enough to settle down to earning his own
living. He is a very vigorous, hardy boy, able to get on with all kinds of
people; and I am sincerely glad to say that he combines much natural prowess
in field sports with much indifference to them. That is, he is a good shot,
and especially a good rider, but he does not really care for hunting or for
horses. He will take out one of my hunters if somebody is here who will
ride the other, and then will jump over every fence there is nearby. Once
this summer he got a slight concussion of the brain thru his horse coming
down with him while he was larking it over a very stiff fence nearly five
feet high, on our own place. But he does not really care for horses, and he
will not miss them very greatly when the future comes and he cannot have
them. He is fond of reading and fond of writing poetry; but he will not
bother with trying to polish his poems, having what I think is the very wise
feeling that he could not do enough as a poet to justify himself in doing
nothing else, and that if he does anything else it is a positive disadvantage
to him to be known to write poetry. I should like to have him go out to
northern Minnesota in the iron country, under John Greenway, and buclde
down to the roughest work. But I shall not force him to do anything which
he does not really wish to undertake, and very possibly something else will
turn up which he will think will be better.

Kermit is very different. He has none of Ted’s natural prowess. With
horses, for instance, he took a long time in learning how to ride them. But
he has become a good rider, and cares far more for it than Ted does. This
year he spent a few days at the Wadsworths’ at Geneseo at the time of the
sports, taking part in the sports and riding all the young hunters, many of
them not yet trained. He got bucked off of them now and then and had
falls with them at different fences, but he thoroly enjoyed himself. Then he
went up for a week to take charge of the Groton camp for poor boys sent
out there by different societies from Boston. He did this work well, and I
was extremely glad to have him do it, for I hope the children will grow up
with the feeling that they must not be selfish and must do a certain amount
for others. Then he went for three weeks to the West — first, for a week
marching with the Thirteenth Cavalry in company with Fitz Lee, and then
on a prairie-chicken shoot to Dakota, topping off with a deer hunt in Wis-

799

consin The cavalrymen said he did very well on the march with them, and
he made a good bag of prairie chickens and ducks and one deer. He has more
genuine literary taste than any other of the children, being much like Edith
in this way What he will do in after life, I do not know. If he enters
college, it will be next fall. If he developed any strong taste for any particular
kind of work, I should not try to send him to college

Archie passed the happiest summer he has ever passed, because he found
out the thing of which he was most fond, namely, sailing. He has a dory,
and is president of the local Dory Club. He has won half a dozen silver,
bronze and pewter cups in races, sometimes taking as crew Captain Norman,
the pilot, sometimes Seaman, our hired man, who is an ex-oysterman, and
sometimes a sailor from the Sylph. He also knows definitely what he wants to
do in life He wants to enter the navy, and if I can get him an appointment to
Annapolis and he is able to pass the entrance examinations, his career will be
settled. Tho he has any amount of character, he is not at all a bright little boy
and I do not know whether he will be able to pass the entrance examinations
even if I can get him the appointment. Anything connected with the water
he delights in. Small tho he is, he dove twenty-two feet to bottom from the
Sylph this summer, only two or three of the Sylph's men being able to make
the dive. He had a heart-breaking experience just before he left for Groton,
for Skip was run over and killed by an automobile. Skip was never out of his
company day or night, and even sailed all of his races with him, and you
can imagine Archie’s grief — and indeed, for the matter of that, the grief
of the rest of us. So poor little black Skip was buried under the stone that
bears the names of the dogs for which we have cared the most; and next
morning Archie and Kermit started for Groton together — Archie’s first
experience away from home.

Quentin is a roly-poly, happy-go-lucky personage, the brightest of any
of the children, but with a strong tendency to pass a very happy life in
doing absolutely nothing except swim or loaf about with other little boys.
However, Edith has made him ride a good deal, and yesterday he took his
pony over — or, to be more accurate, he went over in more or less close
connection with his pony — a three-foot fence He went over it five times,
and the last time sat very well.

Ethel is a dear. She is sixteen now and well-grown, and she and Ted
have house parties and go off very occasionally to other house parties. She
teaches a Sunday school class and helps Edith in the house, and leads just
about such a life as Edith herself led at her age; and altho she has a tendency
to be too nervous and excitable and to do too much, she is a very satisfactory
child, on the whole.

Edith is well. But of course there is always a good deal of bother for her.
I shall be away for over three weeks in October, first on a speech-making
trip and then for a two weeks’ bear hunt in the Louisiana canebrakes. Edith
intends to occupy those three weeks in as unmixt rest as can possibly be

800

obtained. She does not want to go anywhere. I have been trying to find some
place that she would like to go on a trip by herself or with some friend, but
there isn’t any such place. Of course while I am President no trip with me
would be anything save wearisome exertion.

As for me, I have worked every day this summer for three or four hours,
but I have had plenty of holiday, too, and am in fine shape. I have played
tennis; I have taken Edith rowing and riding; I have chopped industriously;
and now and then have shot at a mark with the rifle. There is plenty of work
ahead. I do want to leave certain things to my successor in such shape
that the work I have done won’t be undone. The Panama Canal is getting
along very well. I hope to get it so started that my successor will not be
tempted to change the type or do something of the kind, as he is certain to
be advised to do by various people, and as he will be tempted to do in order
not to appear to be merely carrying out my policy. So with the navy. I want
to put the navy on such a basis that it cannot be shaken from it. I am very
well pleased with the personnel of the officers up to and including the grade
of lieutenant commander; but beyond that the percentage of good men
diminishes very rapidly. They come to command rank too old. They lack
initiative and training, they are inert and unable to bear responsibilities. I am
exceedingly sorry that Harry has retired, 1 for I should like to feel that he was
second in command on this Pacific trip and able to take Evans’ place should
the need arise.

As for my internal policies, the last few years have convinced me more
than ever that it is to the ordinary plain people that we must look for the
future welfare of the Republic, and not either to the overeducated parlor
doctrinaires, nor to the people of the plutocracy, the people who amass great
wealth or who spend it, and who lose their souls alike in one process and the
other.

Love to Cabot. His letters are a continual pleasure and strength to me.
Ever yours

44 J 2 • TO WILLIAM HENRY MOODY Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Oyster Bay, September 21, 1 poy

My clear Moody: I hope you will like your speech at St. Louis! You will agree
with most of it, I guess, for the excellent reason that most of it is taken from
your letter to me — of course I mean the part m reference to the subject mat-
ter of your letter. You will have to pardon one statement m praise of Judge
Amidon. 1 I have recently been glancing thru Jefferson’s works. In 1823 he

1 Charles Henry Davis was retired as rear admiral “by operation of law” in 1907.

1 At St. Louis on October 2, Roosevelt, drawing on Moody’s suggestions, discussed
the constitutional bases for federal control of corporations,

He also praised warmly the “constructive jurisprudence of Judge Charles F. Amidon
who had earlier stated, in a paper read before the American Bar Association, that

801

writes, anent Marshall — the measure of whose services to the country may
be gauged by Jefferson’s hatred of him — that there was no danger which he
(Jefferson) considered so great as the strengthening of the Government “by
the noiseless and therefore unalarmmg instrumentality of the Supreme Court.”
Does not this really mean that Jefferson felt that during the twenty-three
years since the Federalists had gone out of power, but while Marshall had
directed the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court had done active con-
structive work in reference to the Constitution ' 1 Isn’t it really a matter of un-
importance from the largest standpoint whether we say that this was done on
the principle of broad construction, or whether we say that a wise court will
recognize that the Constitution cannot be made a straight jacket; that the
process of formal amendment can very rarely be resorted to, and that there
must be a process of growth and adjustment by the decisions of the court
itself? It seems to me that the difference between the two views is chiefly
one of terminology; and as I know that terminology has a profound effect
upon people, I am delighted to use whatever terminology will excite the
least friction and suspicion, provided the end is obtained. That is why it
seems to me that Judge Amidon’s speech was fundamentally sound, even tho
he could with advantage have couched certain of his statements in other
language. I wish you would look at it carefully.

I am continually brought in contact with very wealthy people. They are
socially the friends of my family, and if not friends, at least acquaintances of
mine, and they were friends of my father’s. I think they mean well on the
whole, but the more I see of them the more profoundly convinced I am of
their entire unfitness to govern the country, and of the lasting damage they
do by much of what they are inclined to think are the legitimate big business
operations of the day. They are as blind to some of the tendencies of the
time, as the French noblesse was before the French Revolution; and they
possess the same curious mixture of impotency to deal with movements that
should be put down ,and of rancorous stupidity in declining to abandon the
kind of reaction in «pohcy» which can do nothing but harm. Moreover,
usually entirely without meaning it, they are singularly callous to the needs,
sufferings, and feelings of the great mass of the people who work with their
hands. They show this in their attitude toward such a matter as the employers’
liability bill. They are simply unable to understand what it means to a work-
ing man’s family to have the breadwinner killed or crippled. They are not
able to grasp the unmerited and dreadful suffering thus brought on so many
different people. Heaven knows how cordially I despise Jefferson, but he did
have one great virtue which his Federalist opponents lacked — he stood for

“the court’s successive decisions must be tested by the way they work m actual appli-
cation to the national life ”

Besides recommending that all industrial corporations doing mteistatc business
be brought under federal control, the President at St Louis argued the need for a
large navy and proposed the use of federal funds to restore the Mississippi as a great
commercial waterway

802

the plain people, for the same people whom Abraham Lincoln afterwards
represented.

By the way, speaking of Jefferson, isn’t it humiliating to realize that
Jefferson — who I think was, not even excepting Buchanan, the most incom-
petent chief executive we ever had, and whose well-nigh solitary service as
President to his country, the acquisition of Louisiana, was rendered by adopt-
ing the Federalist principles which he had most fiercely denounced — isn’t it
humiliating to think that he should have been, as President, rather more
popular than Washington himself at the very close of his administration, and
that almost all of the State legislatures, excluding Massachusetts but including
Rhode Island and Vermont, should have petitioned him to serve for another
term and should have sent him formal messages of grateful thanks for
his services after his term was over? We lived thru Jefferson’s administra-
tion, tho he did us much damage; and we could live thru Bryan or a reac-
tionary, but I do not want to see the experiment tried. Ever yours

4453 • to henry cabot lodge Roosevelt Mss .

Oyster Bay, September 21, 1907

Dear Cabot: Your speech at Malden was all right. I am glad you said what you
did, and am pleased instead of being worried at the reference to it in the
papers. 1

I was perfectly delighted with the remark of Lanier to Mrs. Wharton.
The addition of the morphine habit to my insanity and drunkenness gives the
story a brand-new flavor. 2 3 Really, it sometimes looks to me as if these high
financiers in New York were themselves insane. I can with modest pride
claim that New York is ahead even of Boston on this point, because Wall
Street is much more genuinely representative of New York than State Street
is of Boston. You will be amused to learn that the attacks upon me have made
dear, good Emlen and Christine rabid advocates of me. Hitherto they have
been earnest friends, but with an effort, because they did not approve of
some of my public acts; but when they found their capitalist friends charg-
ing me with drunkenness and insanity, they began seriously to revise their
estimates of these same capitalists.

All right, I will make Wood President of the Commission. I shall try to
get as good a man as Chandler in Chandler’s place. Chandler resigned because

1 Lodge, on September 18, had endorsed Governor Guild for re-election, urging that

a vote for Guild provided a last opportunity for a demonstration of loyalty to Roose-
velt His words were generally interpreted as another indication that the President
would not seek or accept renommation

3 Five months earlier, to the President’s amusement, his detractors m New York had
begun to whisper it about that he had become “partially insane through excessive
drinking ”

803

I would not put out Knox’s man, Daugherty. It would have given mortal
offense to Knox, and would have been quite unwarranted . 8

I do not see what more I can do about the whisky business. Twice I
have given them hearings. Taft, as you know, strongly took their side on the
case, as did Nick Longworth, and all my inclinations were for them. I
would have been delighted if I could have taken their view, but to my mind
it was a simple impossibility to do it, and Bonaparte felt the same way. By
the way, it was not Needham who put me up to it, it was Loeb; and I am
bound to say that I agree with Loeb’s attitude, which is truculent and to the
effect that it was one of the most righteous decisions rendered during my
variegated term of office! Any other decision than the one rendered would
have been a distinct weakening of the pure food law.

As for Reade, I will look him up, but I have an idea that we went very
carefully over his case and came to the conclusion that he ought not to be
promoted — that is, that there were plenty of other men with superior
claims . 4

The delicate thing about those letters concerning the Standard Oil contri-
butions is that the committee refused really to act as I requested. They
made no answer to me for a long time, then told me verbally that no Standard
Oil contributions for my campaign would be accepted, but I think they did
accept individual contributions from the different persons and applied them
to the New York State and Congressional campaigns. However, in my letter
I made it perfectly clear to the committee that no one had anything to
expect in the way of favors because of a contribution, or to dread in the way
of punishment if he did not contribute, and the letters may be handy at some
time.

I am not much concerned over ordinary requests that I should stand for
another term. I have too lively a recollection of the way the State legislatures
even petitioned Jefferson to stand, to be much affected by the supposed com-
pliment. (The more I study Jefferson, the more profoundly I distrust him and
his influence, taken as a whole.) But your letter did touch me very much,
not that it altered in the least my feeling as to the wisdom of my position, but
because of your feeling. You must know very well that you are one of two or
three people — and there are only two or three — whom I do wish to have
feel that I have made a good President.

One of the best turns you ever did me was when you got me to appoint
Moody in the Cabinet. He has just given me a most valuable memorandum
for my St. Louis speech. What a trump he is! Ever yours

* William E. Chandler had resigned as president of the Spanish Treaty Claims Com-
mission because he considered Harry Kerr Daugherty an improper appointee. Daugh-
erty, long-time government counsel before the commission, could not, Chandler ar-
gued, exercise impartial judgment. James Perry Wood, since 1901 a member of the
commission, replaced Chandler as president.

‘Philip Reade, a United States Army colonel from Massachusetts, was promoted to
brigadier general.

804

[Handwritten] The enclosed clipping, in view of its source, the New
York Times, is significant

4454 • TO ARCHIBALD BULLOCH ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

Oyster Bay, September 23, 1907

Darling Archie: One of my old classmates in Harvard was Leonard Opdycke.
He tells me he has a boy in your form. He says he is very fond of the navy,
but he is a very small kid, the smallest in the school, and a little shy. He
wanted to know if I would tell you that this same little boy’s father and I
were classmates at Harvard. Evidently he does not think that the little fellow
is particularly well able to grapple with things by himself, and he would like
to have you be a friend of his. Would you mind trying to be nice to him? In
fact I know you will, for you have always been good to those who were
weaker than you were.

Yesterday Mother and I, for the first time that I can remember, took a
Sunday off, so to speak, and rowed around Lloyd’s Neck, portaging the
isthmus. We wanted to have one good row before we left. We had a delight-
ful time, and tho it threatened a storm it did not burst until w T e were within
a half a mile of the home beach, when we did not care. Your loving father

[ Handwritten ] P.S (Tuesday) Monday it rained hard & blew a gale all
«day»; nevertheless I did about two hours chopping. This morning the
weather is glorious, & mother & I have just come in from a two hours ride.

4455 • TO NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER Roosevelt M$S»

Oyster Bay, September 24, 1907

Dear Murray: I was interested in your letter of the 23d. I agree with all three
points that you make, but I do not quite see their application to what can be
done at present. Of course we should do nothing which will impair the
confidence upon which the whole credit system of the world rests. I do not
know that anything is even threatened to this effect. Next, as to a sound and
elastic currency system, it is a simple impossibility to get anything done by
Congress when all the best people utterly disagree as to what ought to be
done, and only come into substantial agreement in opposition to every pro-
posed plan. This condition does not absolve us from the necessity of trying
to overcome it, as you say, but it renders us absolutely hopeless to expect to
overcome it in the immediate future. Can you tell me a man, or combination
of men, whose judgment on this matter you think I ought to follow? I do not
know any such man or combination of men. I know a great many good men
who have studied the question and whose views are as wide asunder as the
poles. We passed a good law last year, but it did not go as far even as the
moderate recommendations I had made.

As for the opening out of all possible new channels of trade by diplomatic

805

activity and by positive legislation, I can only say that here again it is aston-
ishing how little public feeling there is for any such effort. I have tried once
or twice to make such openings by diplomatic activity, and have had to fight
tooth and nail to get either Democratic or Republican Senators to so much as
even consider the treaties I have sent in, and generally they have rejected
them, while the popular interest has been nil. As for positive legislation, that is
for the change of the tariff, nine tenths of those demanding that it be done
at this session demand it solely and simply as a party move to hurt the Repub-
licans, as they are well aware that it would cause business disturbance and
hopeless political damage. Such agitation this session, by the way, would do
exactly what you say should not be done, that is, it would impair the confi-
dence in the credit system as mighty few other things could. But that the
Republican party ought to and will go into the next election committed in
good faith to talcing up the revision of the tariff immediately afterwards, I
believe. It will do so, for instance, if the forces that tell in favor of Taft win
out. If the reactionaries can get for their standard-bearer some good man like
Knox, or Cannon, or Hughes, you can say good-bye to tariff reform; for such
a man, however excellent personally, would be nominated by the interests
that mean to have a reversal of the policies for which Taft and I stand. I
need not say to you that I like all three men mentioned; and of course this
expression of opinion as to their backers and as to the effect of their nomina-
tion is purely for you personally and not for repetition to anyone. I am on
excellent terms with all three, and of course more particularly with Cannon
and Knox; and it is only to a very intimate friend and in answer to a letter
like yours that I would say as much as I have said. And by the way, while
I appreciate “the reluctance” you speak of “to support Taft,” I think it is very
much less than the reluctance to support anyone else. You have doubtless seen
the results of the canvass made by the Chicago T ribiine, quoted in the New
York Times of last Sunday, which showed an enormous lead for Taft. I quite
agree with you that we ought to look ahead and that there ought to be leader-
ship; but -you of course know as well as I do the constant yell that there is
against leadership — . what they call usurpation and dictation — on my part;
meaning thereby just this effort to look ahead and to get Congress to look
ahead. The tariff, as Cleveland found out, is particularly something which
Congress has more power than the Executive to deal with. You are of course
aware of the extreme jealousy that it feels towards a commission. I believe in
a commission, but whether I could get Congress to accept one, or get the
people to take any interest in one, is an entirely different matter. The bulk of
the men who profess to be for tariff reform, for instance, would at once
assail the proposal to appoint a commission as being simply another effort to
dodge matters.

I am rather interested m what you say of the prediction of that “shrewd
and experienced politician” that he thought circumstances would compel
both parties to nominate strong men of high character who had not been

806

prominently identified with officeholding. Of course this is always possible,
and it represents the exact reason why we do not take the long look ahead
which you rightly say is the business of statesmanship. It is because we have
just this type of shrewd politicians to deal with. The business of this nation
is complicated. There is no excuse whatever, when we have such an abun-
dance of really big men, strong men of high character, who do know all
about this business, for failing to take advantage of this knowledge. Nobody
can learn about the navy, and the Panama Canal, and the Philippines, and
our foreign policy, and what it is possible to do in federal regulation of trusts,
save by experience; that is by being prominently identified with officeholding.
To put a good man with a good character who has not been “prominently
identified with officeholding” into the Presidency, is just the kind of inanity
of which you speak. He has got to learn all of these things during his first
months or years of the Presidency, instead of knowing them already. A man
like Root or Taft does not have to learn any of them and can do his best
work from the beginning. It is one of the very real drawbacks of our system
that the “shrewd and experienced politicians” of the kind you speak of should
so often be right from the standpoint of catching votes when they make such
a proposition as this one made, a proposition which on . . . means to take
a second-rate man. Faithfully yours

44 56 • to william j. youngs Roosevelt Mss .

Confidential Oyster Bay, September 24, 1907

My dear Youngs: I earnestly hope that Mr. Loeb can go as a delegate to the
national convention from this district. Therefore I trust that all friends of
mine, and especially you, will see that his candidacy is in no shape or way
mixt up with any local contests. This next year it is important to get the
right man for the Presidential nominee, and all small local fights can wait; and
in any event, Loeb’s candidacy must not be mixt up or hampered by them. 1

With regards to Mrs. Youngs, believe me, Faithfully yours

4457 * TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT RoOSevdt MSS .

Oyster Bay, September 24, 1907

Dear Kerrmt: It is a great comfort to Mother and to me to know that you
have been taking such thoughtful care of poor little Archie. I am very glad
you brought up The Lunatic at Large and got the little fellow into your
room to cheer him up by letting him read it. It was characteristic of you.

I am much pleased at your being manager of the football team. It means
a good deal of work, but it is the kind of work which is good training.

I wish I could answer you definitely about what you are going to do when
you leave school. If you think out definitely your position, I shall not inter-

1 Loeb was not elected a delegate to the convention.

807

fere with the decision you come to; but I do feel very strongly that it is
better for you to go to Harvard unless some opening comes up which makes
you feel that for grave reasons you want to take advantage of it. For example,
in lumbering, I do not believe that your taking an immediate start in it would
present immediate advantages which would compensate what you would
ultimately gain by going to Harvard. At nineteen you would not be fit in
body or mind to move rapidly upward, and unless there are exceptional
advantages of which I do not know I feel that you would gain more for the
next three years by going to Harvard than by serving an apprenticeship as
a boy in the business. I think by twenty-five you would stand ahead and
not behind because of the three years in college. Of course there may be
an exceptional set of circumstances which would render this remark not
applicable. If you would like to write to Mr. Hughitt 1 you are quite welcome
to send him this letter and get his judgment. I would have great confidence
in it. My feeling is that if a boy can, because of his parents’ having the money,
avoid going to work for his living until he is twenty-one, it is better, because
he is then far more matured, and he gets a training that he cannot get in any
other way. Of course, if going to college makes him soft and pleasure-loving,
so that when he comes out he won’t go into hard work, it is a curse and he
probably won’t amount to anything. But in such a case he probably wouldn’t
amount to anything anyhow. If he has the right stuff in him I am inclined to
think that he is better off having gone to college, simply because I do not
think he can gain very much in actual experience or work up to the time he
is twenty-one.

Mr. Loeb agrees with me. He feels that unless a boy has a very decided
taste it is better to have him wait until he is twenty-one before deciding, as
he is not so apt to make a mistake; and then normally, up to twenty-one he
cannot do very much good work of the kind that will tell most afterwards.
Ever your loving father

4458 • to euhu root Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, September 26, 1907

Dear Elibu : It was delightful to get your letter — a letter just like your old
self. But in one way it was not needed, for when your memorandum came
the other day with the suggestion that we put litmus paper on the tongue of
the Servian Prince to see if there was an acid reaction, in order to determine
if he was a real Prince — why then I felt that you were all right and that I
could take up my burden this winter with a light heart. You do not need to
be told of my concern and anxiety, and of my sympathy with you this sum-
mer. You have had an awful siege, but evidently it is now all right. Loeb has
shown such self-consciousness over your remark that “he probably instigated

1 Marvin Hughitt, the railroad executive, the very model of a modem major (self-

made) magnate.

808

the Vancouver riots ’ that I am inclined to think there is something in the
suggestion. °

My feeling would be strongly that we ought not to object to Wu. 1 He is
a bad old Chink and if he had his way he would put us all to the heavy death
or do something equally unpleasant with us, but we cannot expect to get a
Minister like the one that has just gone, and the loss is far more China’s than
ours; while I do not object to any Chinaman showing a feeling that he would
like to retaliate now and then for our insolence to the Chinese.

By the way, Leonard, that marine officer, has made a most interesting
report on the Chinese army, in which he says that the wave of reform has
spent itself; that the army is less efficient than it was a couple of years ago;
that, for instance, the officers are showing a tendency to go back to native
dress; and that it does not in any way compare with Japanese or European
armies, altho it probably would be effective against a Boxer mob.

Remember that this winter there will surely be an effort made to pass
legislation which will include all Asiatics, and that the temper of the country
about such legislation will be wholly different from a year ago.

Give my love to Mrs. Root. Will you also in your own language give
my very profound regards to President Diaz, the assurance of my genuine
respect and regard for him personally and of my good wishes for both him
and his country? Ever yours

4459 • to david decamp Thompson Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, September 27, 1907

My dear Mr . Thompson • Surely you know that it is never under any circum-
stances an impertinence for you to write me about anything. I quite agree
with your position that, in spite of certain defects in the constitution of Okla-
homa, it would be neither wise nor proper for me to refuse my assent. 1 1 felt
greatly relieved by the adoption of the prohibition article in the constitution;
for without this I should have been seriously concerned as to the future of the
Indians.

I am much pleased that you like w T hat we are doing about the forests.
You know, my dear sir, I count you as one of the real forces for righteousness

1 Wu Ting-fang, the new Chinese Minister, had been an active promoter of the Chi-
nese boycott against American goods.

1 Although expressing a dislike of several general provisions in the constitution, in-
cluding those concerned with initiative, referendum, and injunctions, Roosevelt did
not believe they violated either the enabling act or the national Constitution. The
President however objected strongly to the number of specific and detailed regula-
tions incorporated in the constitution. “I have only one criticism to make of the new
constitution you have adopted,” he is reported to have told one of the senators-elect
from Oklahoma. “It fails to prescribe the kind of tooth powder a true Oklahomian
must use. Why this omission, when it regulated everything under the sum 1 ” “It was
an oversight, Mr. President,” replied the Oklahomian apologetically, “but we reckon
on fixing that by statute.”

809

and decency in this country and your good will is something that I prize
greatly. Faithfully yours

4460 • TO ELMER JACOB BURKETT Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, September 27, 1907

My dear Senator Burkett ; 1 I cannot think that the recent Nebraska Repub-
lican platform exprest the real feeling of the Republican party as regards
the section demanding a constitunonal amendment to prevent the Federal
judiciary from issuing injunctions to stop State officials and others from
carrying out State laws (when these laws conflict with the fundamental laws
of the land). This proposal is simply one to abolish the Federal Government,
the Federal Judges must have power to prevent the States from nullifying the
National laws. The convention might just as well have put in the platform a
section saying that they denounced the work of Washington and Lincoln and
condemned the action of the Republican party at each and every point of
the Civil War. The one vital element in our Federal Constitution is the
supremacy of the Federal law in every part of this Union. To permit
State law to override the Federal law is of course to endorse nullification, se-
cession, and disunion. The resolution in question was in effect just as bad as
a secession ordinance. Of course I know that there was no bad intent in the
matter, but such a resolution ought not to be past even thru carelessness. I
would rather not have this letter made public because I do not think any
attention has been paid to the resolution in question, but I shall be glad, if
you deem it wise, to have you show this to any of the leaders, so that they
may understand fully what such carelessness would commit them to if they
by any accident got drawn into a reaffirmation of the position taken. Old
Andrew Jackson, in 1832, took ground on this question quite as decided as
Washington or Lincoln, and we can safely follow m the footsteps of these
three men.

I know that this was an inadvertence on the part of the convention, for
this same convention heartily endorsed me and the principles for which I
stand, and if there is one principle for which I stand it is the supremacy of
the national law in every corner of this Union — Nebraska, New York,
Oregon, Louisiana, thru all parts of the Union, one just as much as the other.
I shall back up the Federal Judges in enforcing it with all the strength there
is in me. Faithfully yours

4461 • TO ARCHIBALD BULLOCH ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, September 28, 1907

Dearest Archie: Before we left Oyster Bay Quentin had collected two snakes.
He lost one, which did not turn up again until an hour before departure,

'Elmer Jacob Burkett, Republican congressman from Nebraska, 1899-1905, senator,

1905-1911.

8 I O

when he found it in one of the spare rooms. This one he let loose, and
brought the other one to Washington, there being a variety of exciting
adventures on the way; the snake wriggling out of his box once, and being
upset on the floor once. Of course we were met by Mademoiselle, whom
Quentin embraced with the deepest affection and who was really very much
overcome at seeing Quentin again, and she asked after you with the utmost
eagerness. The first day home Quentin was allowed not to go to school but to
go about and renew all his friendships. Among other places that he visited was
Schmid’s animal store, where he left his little snake. Schmid presented him
with three snakes, simply to pass the day with him — a large and beautiful and
very friendly king snake and two f little wee snakes. Quentin came hurrying
back on his roller skates and burst into the room to show me the treasures.
I was discussing certain matters with the Attorney General at the time, and
the snakes were eagerly deposited m my lap. The king snake, by the way,
altho most friendly with Quentin, had just been making a resolute effort to
devour one of the smaller snakes. As Quentin and his menagerie were an
interruption to my interview with the Department of Justice, I suggested that
he go into the next room, where four Congressmen were drearily waiting
until I should be at leisure. I thought that he and his snakes would probably
enliven their waiting time. He at once fell in with the suggestion and rushed
up to the Congressmen with the assurance that he would there find kindred
spirits. They at first thought the snakes were wooden ones, and there was
some perceptible recoil when they realized that they were alive. Then the
king snake went up Quentin’s sleeve — he was three or four feet long — and
we hesitated to drag him back because his scales rendered that difficult. The
last I saw of Quentin, one Congressman was gingerly helping him off with
his jacket so as to let the snake crawl out of the upper end of the sleeve.
Your loving father

4462 • 10 HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt M.SS .

Washington, September 29, 1907

Dear Cabot: Marvin 1 was most sensible and I think substantially agreed with
me. The matter is one by statute expressly put within the discretion of the
President, who is forbidden to pay an extortionate amount of excess to Ameri-
cans. I have told Metcalf that I thought we could defend giving the American
firms fifty per cent more than the foreign firms. 2 I do not think we could

1 Wmthrop Lippitt Marvin, chief editorial writer for the Boston Journal , 1895-
1903; secretary of the Merchant Marine Commission, 1904-1905; and secretary
and treasurer of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, 1908

2 A severe coal shortage on the West Coast intensified the problem of fueling the
Great White Fleet in the Pacific. American shipping firms were asking excessive
prices to carry the coal from Atlantic ports. After these firms refused to accept
rates 50 per cent higher than those asked by foreign firms, the Navy Department,
with the President’s approval, had the coal shipped in foreign bottoms.

8ll

defend ourselves against the charge of having paid extortionate amounts if
we gave more than fifty per cent additional. I think it is a very liberal allow-
ance. Marvin gave me to understand that he thought my position was correct.
We will be attacked whichever we do. When I come in for a deficit I want to
be able to defend myself against the charge of having submitted to extortion
no less than against the charge of having ignored American shipping. It seems
to me that fifty per cent is all that we can reasonably be expected to add on.
As I say, Marvin gave me to understand that he sympathized with my posi-
tion.

In great haste, Ever yours

4463 • TO ETHEL ROOSEVELT Roosevelt Mss.

On board U.S.S. Mississippi, October 1, 1907

Dearest Ethel: The first part of my trip up to the tame that we embarked on
the river at Keokuk was just about in the ordinary style. I had continually to
rush out to wave at the people at the towns thru which the train passed. If
the train stopped anywhere I had to make a very short speech to several
hundred people who evidently thought they liked me, and whom I really
liked, but to whom I had nothing in the world to say. At Canton and at
Keokuk I went through the usual solemn festivities, — the committee of
reception and the guard of honor, with the open carnage, the lines of
enthusiastic fellow citizens to whom I bowed continually right and left, the
speech which in each case I thought went off rather better than I had dared
hope, — for I felt as if I had spoken myself out. When I got on the boat,
however, times grew easier. I still have to rush out continually, stand on the
front part of the deck, and wave at groups of people on shore, and at stem-
wheel steamboats draped with American flags and loaded with enthusiastic
excursionists. But I have a great deal of time to myself, and by gentle
firmness I think I have succeeded in impressing on my good hosts that I
rather resent allopathic doses of information about shoals and dykes, the
amount of sand per cubic foot of water, the quantity of manufactures
supplied by each river town, etc. I have been reading Fuck of Pook’s Hill,
and I like it very much better than when the chapters came out separately m
a magazine.

The river is beautiful — at least in my eyes; the forests and the com fields,
the islands, the shifting muddy currents, and just at this moment a glorious
sunset. Your loving father

4464 • TO THE WRITER OF “POINT OF VIEW 5 ’ Roosevelt MSS.

On board U.S.S. Mississippi, October 1, 1907

To the writer of “Pomt of View'”: I am not much of an admirer of auto-
mobiles, regarding them simply as useful for certain purposes of locomotion;

8 1 2

but don t you think you are wrong in speaking as if it were something
purely modem to make this kind of an instrument the hero of a novel, O
laudator temp oris acti? You say that Irving would never have done with a
sailboat what a modern writer does with an automobile. Irving would not
have done it because he could not have. He did not know anything about
boats. But Irving’s contemporary Cooper did. (He was not quite his con-
temporary, but I speak roughly.) One of Cooper’s best novels was The Two
Admirals . I don’t care anything for the love story in it, and neither did
Cooper. He says at the end that of course his ships are his real heroes, and he
proceeds to tell their after fate as such. It is worth while reading all of The
Two Admirals that refers to the ships and the sea fighting. He treats his
ships just as the modem writer does automobiles; only, Cooper was a
genius. Very truly yours

44 65 * to kermit Roosevelt Roosevelt Mss .

On board U.S.S. Mississippi, October 1, 1907

Dear Kermit: On getting off the tram at Keokuk this morning, (the first part
of my journey having been of the normal Presidential railway trip type)
what was my astonishment in finding among those assembled to greet me
Captain Seth Bullock. I seized him at once and have him on the steamboat
with me going down the Mississippi, and will take him to St. Louis or Cairo,
or for the matter of that Memphis, if he so desires. He spoke of you with
the genuine affection he always displays, and is bent upon having Archie visit
the Black Hills. But I told him that in view of Archie’s delight in sailing
I thought the Black Hills didn’t offer a sufficiently extensive water prospect.

After speaking at Keokuk this morning 1 we got aboard this brand new
stern-wheel of the regular Mississippi type and started downstream. I went
up in the “Texas” 2 and of course felt an almost irresistible desire to ask the
pilot about Mark Twain. It is a broad, shallow, muddy river, at places the
channel being barely wide enough for the boat to go through, though to my
inexperienced eyes the whole river looks like a channel. The bottom lands,
Illinois on one side and Missouri on the other, are sometimes overgrown with
forests and sometimes great rich corn fields, with here and there a house, here
and there villages, and now and then a little town. At every such place all
the people of the neighborhood have gathered to greet me. The water front
of the towns would be filled with a dense packed mass of men, women, and
children, waving flags. The little villages have not only their own population,

1 The speech was on agricultural development # ?

“The “Texas” was the structure on the hurricane deck which included officers
quarters and the pilot house. The origin of this use for the word is interesting. On
the river boats cabins frequently were named for the states. Since the officers
country was laige, the cabins there were, naturally, most often named for the largest
state Hence the texas, m time, became a generic term for the area from which the
ship was controlled.

813

but also the fanners who have driven in in their wagons with their wives and
children from a dozen miles back — just such farmers as came to see you and
the cavalry on your march through Iowa last summer. It is my first trip on
the Mississippi, and I am greatly interested in it How wonderful in its
rapidity of movement has been the history of our country, compared with,
the history of the old world. For untold ages this river had been flowing
through the lonely continent, not very greatly changed since the close of the
Pleistocene. During all these myriads of years the prairie and the forest came
down to its banks. The immense herds of the buffalo and the elk wandered
along them season after season, and the Indian hunters on foot or in canoes
trudged along the banks or skimmed the water. Probably a thousand years
saw no change that would have been noticeable to our eyes. Then three
centuries ago began the work of change. For a century its effects were not
perceptible. Just nothing but an occasional French fleet or wild half-savage
French Canadian explorer passing up or down the river or one of its branches
in an Indian canoe; then the first faint changes, the building of one or two
little French fur traders’ hamlets, the passing of one or two British officers’
boats, and the very rare appearance of the uncouth American backwoodsman.
Then the change came with a rush Our settlers reached the headwaters of the
Ohio, and flatboats and keel boats began to go down to the mouth of the
Mississippi, and the Indians and the game they followed began their last
great march to the west. For ages they had marched back and forth, but from
this march there was never to be a return. Then the day of steamboat traffic
began, and the growth of the first American cities and States along the river
with their strength and their squalor and their raw pride. Then this mighty
steamboat traffic passed its zenith and collapsed, and for a generation the river
towns have dwindled compared with the towns which took their importance
from the growth of the railroads. I think of it all as I pass down the river.

October 4. Seth Bullock has left, and in his place as temporary visitors I
have had Frank Frantz, of Oklahoma, Curry, the Governor of New Mexico,
and Gifford Pmchot, and they have all gone, too. We are steaming down
the river now between Tennessee and Arkansas. The forest comes down a
little denser to the bank, the houses do not look quite so well kept, otherwise
there is not much change. There are a dozen steamers accompanying us, filled
with delegates from various river cities. The people are all out on the banks
to greet us still. Moreover, at night, no matter what the hour is that we pass
a town, it is generally illuminated, and sometimes whistles and noisy greetings,
while our steamboats whistle m equally noisy response, so that our sleep is
apt to be broken. Seventeen governors of different States are along, in a boat
by themselves. I have seen a good deal of them, however, and it has been of
real use to me, especially as regards two or three problems that are up. At St.
Louis there was an enormous multitude of people out to see us. The proces-
sion was in a drenching ram, in which I stood bareheaded, smiling affably and
waving my drowned hat to those hardy members of the crowd who declined

8 14

to go to shelter. At Cairo, I was also greeted with great enthusiasm, and I
was interested to find that there was still extreme bitterness felt over Dickens’s
description of the town and the people in Martin Chuzzleunt sixty-five years
ago. I should suppose that my speeches went off fairly well; at least they were
received well by the immediate audience, but I do not know how they will
affect the people at large. I make my last set speech for the time being this
afternoon at Memphis, and then I am off for the bear hunt.

I haven t very much faith in our killing bears, or at least in my killin g
them, but it will be great fun to be out m a canebrake. Your loving father

Seth Bullock of his own motion told me that in his judgment you ought
by all means to go through Harvard before going into business; he hoped that
then you would come west f

4466 * TO JUDSON CLAUDIUS CLEMENTS Roosevelt MSS.

On board U.S.S. Mississippi, October 3, 1907

My dear Judge Clements: I am seriously concerned at the condition in Ala-
bama in connection with the injunction issued by Judge Jones against the
endorsement of the State rate laws. You know my position. You know of
course that there cannot be the slightest hesitation on the part of the national
government in sustaining the courts in securing due process of law. You
know, moreover, my belief that ultimately anything dealing with interstate
commerce should be decided purely by the national government, but I am
very anxious that my adherence to principles which as principles seem to me
vital and from which I shall never deviate, shall not work injustice in any
given case if it can be avoided. I have had a long talk with Governor Comer,
and his statement of the case would seem to show that the rates fixed are
neither unreasonable nor confiscatory, and he assures me that there is no
intention to resist the orders of the court, and only a desire that the rates
shall go into effect now, pending the appeal to the Supreme Court, because
he feels that otherwise there will be such interminable delay as to work a
defeat of the ends of justice. I do not know that there is anything that I can
do m the matter, but I should like full information about it I need not say
to you that it is a matter of great discretion and delicacy, and in investigating
it I do not wish you to let it be known that you are investigating it by my
direct orders, because this would necessarily create a great newspaper furor.
But I would like you to go at once to Alabama, investigate the whole sub-
ject, seeing Governor Comer, Judge Jones, and the Railway Commission of
Alabama, and report to me in full on the whole situation. My object is on the
one hand unfalteringly to support the federal courts, and on the other hand
if possible to avoid any unseemly clash with the State authorities and above all,
to secure the speediest possible settlement of the matter by the Court of
Appeals. If m your judgment the rate is not confiscatory, and if there is any
way by which through action of your commission we can secure its being

815

put into effect at once, pending the appeal, that is what I should prefer, but
this may be wholly impossible. So give me as full a report as practicable, stat-
ing the case absolutely on its merits, and without regard to the feeling of
either side. Very truly yours

4467 • to John h. moore Roosevelt Mss.

Telegram On board U.S.S. Mississippi, October 4, 1907

I direct that the license of the master, or whoever is responsible for the Fred
Hartweg during the present voyage, be suspended at once for ninety days. 1
I wish this done by telegraph, wherever the boat may be, if such procedure is
possible. Col. Sears 2 can give you the details of the misconduct, which has
been of a serious nature, and might have at any time caused an accident to
this boat as well as to other boats.

4468 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE Roosevelt Mss.

On board U.S.S. Mississippi, October 4, 1907

My dear Senator Beveridge: In our talk the other night there was one thing
I forgot to say. It is entirely evident that we can do nothing on the joint
statehood proposition. The two territories are far more hostile to it than
before; the country is against it. It is absurd to persevere in it under such
circumstances. New Mexico ought to come in at once as a State. I am in-
clined to think it better to make it a complete job, and bring in Arizona also.
We gain nothing by refusing to face facts.

Give my warm regards to Mrs. Beveridge. I am looking forward to seeing
you both at the White House at the earliest possible moment. Sincerely yours

4469 • to john burroughs Roosevelt Mss.

Stamboul, Louisiana, October 13, 1907

Dear Oom John: The volume came with your inscription, and of course I
like it very much indeed I had completely forgotten that letter I wrote you.
You do not know how much real pleasure it gives me to have had such a

1 That morning the Fred Hartweg had fouled the President’s ship. The collision,
which threw the President and several of his party onto the deck, climaxed a spirited
. race among the vessels in the flotilla for the place of honor directly astern of the
U S S. Mississippi Newspapers reproved Roosevelt for his ungenerous response to
this lighthearted rivalry. Some, like the Baltimore Sun, found political significance
in the President’s telegram revoking the shipmaster’s license. “It was a character-
istic order,” that paper emphasized, “which furnishes further evidence of Mr. Roose-
velt’s assumption of arbitrary power in direct defiance of the law ” The order was
sent to Moore, the inspector of boilers at Evansville, Indiana, who referred it to
Henry C. Waltz, inspector of boilers at Memphis, Tennessee.

* Clinton Brooke Sears was the officer in charge of the army’s river improvement
work between Cairo and St. Louis.

816

book written about me by you , 1 for whom I feel not merely an affectionate
regard, but the respect due to one who will have an abiding place in litera-
ture.

I am having an interesting hunt, tho I am sorry to say I do not think we
shall get any bear, for so far we have found but one, which kept in very
dense cover and finally fairly outran the dogs before any of us caught a
glimpse of it. There are quite a party of us and we have the traditional appe-
tites of hunters, but deer are very plentiful and we have shot four, strictly
to keep the camp in meat. I killed one myself — the only shot I have fired,
but I caught a glimpse of two wolves this morning, which had come down
to the other side of the bayou in broad daylight to drink. There are great
black squirrels here, the black fox squirrel, and numbers of birds. Most of
these birds are simply our northern birds that have come down in the migra-
tion, but the commonest woodpeckers around camp are the red-bellied,
which are new to me, and in a grove of giant cypress I saw two of the mag-
nificent ivory-billed woodpeckers. I should be sorry to have missed them.
The trees are majestic, especially the cypress, red gum, and white oak, which
grow to such a stately height that it would be hard to equal them this side of
the giant trees of California. Always yours

[, Handwritten ] Since writing the above I killed a good big bear, at bay
in a cane brake.

’John Burroughs, Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt (Boston, 1907).

8x7

rr To Restore Confidence ”

October 1907— January 1908

447 ° • TO THEODORE roosevelt, junior Roosevelt Mss.

En route Washington, October 22, 1907

Dear Ted: “Bad old father” is coming back after a successful trip. It was a
success in every way, including the bear hunt, but in the case of the bear
hunt we only just made it successful and no more, for it was not until the
twelfth day of steady hunting that I got my bear. Then I shot it in the most
approved hunter’s style, going up on it in a canebrake as it made a walking
bay before the dogs. I also killed a deer — more by luck than anything else,
as it was a difficult shot.

On the trip down the Mississippi going to the bear hunt and on the trip
overland coming back I have met with a great reception everywhere, and
nowhere was the enthusiasm greater than in Mississippi itself, in spite of the
fact that the Governor issued an impassioned manifesto against me the day
before I arrived. I am dictating this a few hours before I get to Washington.
I have the homing instinct very strongly developed!

I have been greatly interested by what I have seen in the papers as to your
playing on the Harvard second eleven. I don’t suppose you have much
chance to make the first eleven, but I shall be awfully interested to see how
you* do. Is your knee much hurt* Do you think you will be able to play
again this year*

What did Brother Farley 1 decide to do as to the ranching? Your loving
-father

447 1 * to william sowden sims Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, October 23, 1907

My dear Commander Sims: I could have received no letter that would be
more welcome than that which you have just sent me. 1 1 was looking forward
with the utmost anxiety to the results of this practice. By the way, did you
find any difference in the number of hits of the eight-inch guns made from
the superimposed turrets as compared with those not in such turrets* I shall
make a strong bid for all-big-gun battleships, of course. Is there any point
you would especially like me to bring out in my annual message, or any
other action you would recommend my taking* Faithfully yours

4472 • to george curry Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, October 24, 1907

My dear Governor Curry: I have seen several of the leaders of the House and
Senate and it is evident that it will be worse than useless to hope to secure
1 Eliot Farley, Harvard ’07, Porcellian Club, later a quiet resident of Wellesley, Mas-
sachusetts.

1 Sims, who withm the next few weeks was appointed Naval Aide to the President,
had written Roosevelt a description of the record-breaking gunnery exercises held
during the annual fall target practice.

821

action for the admission of New Mexico and Arizona this year. These gen-
tlemen say that the fight is too recent to give any hope of the admission of
the two Territories as States, and that they could not without stultification so
soon vote for such a proposition. I explained to them what you had told me
about the great increase of population m New Mexico, as well as what Gov-
ernor Kibbey had told me as to an increase in population in Arizona. They
answered that in that case we should wait until the regular cemsus of 1910
and see if it bore out these assertions. I told them that my view was that
inasmuch as what I desired, namely, joint statehood, was refused by the Ter-
ritories, and inasmuch as the representatives of the Nation as a whole had
refused to insist upon it, as I desired, the only wise alternative seemed to me
to admit the two Territories as separate States They answered that they
were not willing to accept this conclusion, and that inasmuch as joint state-
hood had been declined they felt that the two Territories should remain as
such at least until the next census showed exactly what their condition was.
Some of them went much further than this and declined to consider the ques-
tion of separate statehood under any conditions.

I have sent a copy of this letter to Governor Kibbey. I do not see that
anything can be gained, as the circumstances actually are, by my making any
allusion to the subject in my message, where I shall have to touch on so many
topics, which are of immediate and pressing importance.

With regard, Sincerely yours

4473 • TO GEORGE BRUCE CORTELYOU RoOSCVelt MSS .

Washington, October 25, 1907

My dear Mr . Cortelyou: After consultation with Root, Meyer, and Bacon, I
have sent you the enclosed letter. 1 There is much clamor for me to say some-

1 On Tuesday, October 22, the closing of the Knickerbocker Trust Company pre-
cipitated the panic of 1907 The collapse of the Morse and Hemze copper corner,
on Wednesday the 16th, had started runs on trust companies with which these spec-
ulators were connected (see No. 4400, note 1). These included the Knickerbocker,
whose president, Charles A. Barney, had helped finance Morse’s financial operations.
The suspension of Barney’s bank caused a spectacular break m the stock market and
intensified the runs on the trust companies, especially the Trust Company of America
and the Lincoln Trust

Roosevelt on his return to Washington, on Wednesday the 23rd, immediately
consulted with Root, Bacon, and Meyer, the members of his staff closest to the busi-
ness community. Cortelyou had already left for New York, where, after conferring
with J. P Morgan and other bankers, the Secretary of the Treasury arranged for
the deposit of $25,000,000 of government funds m the New York nationals banks.
With these funds and monies collected from Harnman, Rockefeller, and the bank-
ers themselves, the New York financiers directed by Morgan were by the weekend
able to meet the runs on the trust companies and to prevent the closing of the Stock
Exchange. On Saturday the 26th, the New York Clearing House further pooled the
financial resources of Wall Street by issuing Clearing House certificates. That after-
noon Cortelyou published Roosevelt’s letter of calm confidence The crisis, however,
was by no means past, the runs still continued, with the Trust Company of America
rapidly becoming the point of danger.

822

thing, and it seemed to the three men I have named and to me that this was
the right thing to say. If you agree, publish the letter. If you do not agree,
and either think that no letter should be published or that changes should be
made in the letter I have sent, will you call me up between half past nine and
ten tomorrow morning, by long distance telephone 3
You are having a very trying time. Faithfully yours
[Hand , written\ I must trust to your judgement as to whether or not the
publication of the letter will be a good thing in helping to restore confidence.
You can judge better than any of us here.

4474 • to george bruce cortelyou Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, October 25, 1907

My dear Mr. Cortelyou: I congratulate you upon the admirable way in which
you have handled the present crisis. I congratulate also those conservative and
substantial businessmen who in this crisis have acted with such wisdom and
public spirit. By their action they did invaluable service in checking the
panic which, beginning as a matter of speculation, was threatening to destroy
the confidence and credit necessary to the conduct of legitimate business. No
one who considers calmly can question that the underlying conditions which
make up our financial and industrial well-being are essentially sound and
honest. Dishonest dealing and speculative enterprise are merely the occa-
sional incidents of our real prosperity. The action taken by you and by the
businessmen in question has been of the utmost consequence and has secured
opportunity for the calm consideration which must inevitably produce entire
confidence in our business conditions. Faithfully yours

4475 • to Joseph bucklin bishop Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, October 25, 1907

Dear Bishop: I shall put in my message substantially what you have sent me
with the approval of the Colonel. The changes will be merely verbal. I shall
specifically stand for the appointment of the Commission m the order you
mention; for the present type of canal as against a sea-level canal; and for
Government work as opposed to contract work. My impression is that we
had better broaden the locks to 125 feet. I shall probably say this.

Give my hearty regards to the Colonel. You told me exactly what
wanted to know. Faithfully yours

1 In his message, which incorporated all Bishop s suggestions ( State Pap , ■ •

XV 452-454), Roosevelt recommended widening the locks to 120 feet. The Gen
Boa’rd J of the Navy had earlier requested that the originally proposed width of 95
feet shoulfbe increased to no feet so that the largest battleships then contemplated
could make the transit. The Navy’s recommendation was approved by Roosevelt m
an executive order of January ij, 1908.

823

447 6 * to william Howard taft Roosevelt Mss .

Telegram Washington, October 28, 1907

Strong French representation that your going to Berlin and not to Paris will
be regarded as a slight to France. If you can avoid stopping at Berlin better
do so. 1 Root agrees with me.

4477 * TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JUNIOR Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, October 29, 1907

Bear Ted: It was good to hear from you. I do not think there is any chance
of war with Japan at this time or in the immediate future; so the Brothers
will have to possess their souls in peace. Of course if there was a war I should
arrange to have you go. If only the regular army was employed you would
have to go as a private in the ranks. If it was a big enough war to have to
receive volunteer regiments I should see if it were possible to get you a sec-
ond lieutenancy as, for instance, Dave Goodrich got his. I am working pretty
near the limit now; and until Congress arrives I shall have my hands full with
my message, as well as with foreign affairs, and this financial trouble at home.
After Congress gets here my time will be taken up anyhow. So I do not look
forward to much of a vacation until next summer.

You must have had a good deal of trouble with your leg. I hope it is sub-
stantially well. I shall look forward with interest to know whether you are
able to get back to practice at all. You played once or twice on the second
eleven against outside teams, didn’t you * I have just been sent by the author
the best hunting book I know. 1 As Selous says in the introduction, it con-
tains the best lion stories since the days of Herodotus. Your loving father

4478 • TO SETH LOW RoOSGVClt Mss .

Washington, October 30, 1907

Dear Seth: I have your letter of the 26th. There is just one matter that makes
it difficult for me not to advise action at present along the lines of national
incorporation act. This is that I believe that there should be a modification of
the Sherman law permitting combinations when the combination is not hostile
to the interests of the people; and I do not see how such permission can be
given unless there is some supervision by the national Government along the

1 Taft, returning in November from the Orient via Vladivostok and St. Petersburg,
stopped neither at Paris nor Berlin.

1 John Henry Patterson’s little classic, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Other East
African Adventures (London, 1907).

824

lines of, say, the national banks, but I am well aware that there is the feeling
of State hostility that you describe. 1

I thank you, my dear Seth, for what you say of my speeches, and for
your views of the causes of the present situation. I will take up at once with
Mr. Cortelyou that suggestion of Mr Forgan’s. 2 Sincerely yours

4479 • TO h. a. DOBSON Roosevelt Mss .

Personal Washington, November i, 1907

My dear Mr . Dobson: I am interested in your remark. I may be in error about
chipmunks invariably hibernating. I thought that they did because I did not
see them in the winter. I am sure that the chipmunks occasionally hibernate,
because I have unimpeachable testimony to that effect.

I am also much interested in what you tell me about the pigeons. Sincerely
yours

1 Low had just returned from a trip to Chicago, where he had served as a delegate
to the National Conference on Trusts and Combinations held October 22-25 under
the auspices of the National Civic Federation. The conclusions of the conference
indicated the extent to which opinion favorable to government regulation of cor-
porations had developed since the conference m 1899 on saiBe subject of trusts
and combinations

The resolutions adopted m 1907, conforming m large part to Roosevelt’s policies
and recommendation, called for the following national legislation. ( 1 ) a law to per-
mit agreements between railroads, subject to the approval of the I C.C , on reasonable
passenger and freight rates, (2) the creation of a nonpartisan commission to investi-
gate and report on business and industrial combinations, particularly on the advisa-
bility of a federal licensing system, (3) modification of the Sherman Act to remove
prohibitions on combinations of labor and farm organizations and on those industrial
combinations whose objects were in the public interest, (4) a law to provide, through
the appropriate bureaus of the Department of Commerce, complete publicity for the
capitalization, accounts, operations, transportation expenses, and selling prices of all
corporations large enough to have monopolistic influence. See Proceedings of the
National Conference on Trusts and Combinations (New York, 1908).

The Chicago conference m 1907 also discussed, without reaching a conclusion,
conflicts between state and federal authorities over the determination of railroad
rates and the adjudication of rate appeals This conflict, sharpest in the difficulties in
Alabama and North Carolina, had already held the attention of another conference,
that of state attorneys general at St Louis on September 30 and October 1. The at-
torneys general, voicing the hostility of which Roosevelt and Low were aware,
adopted a memorial to Congress asking that the power of federal judges over state
courts be restricted

a The suggestions of James Berwick Forgan on credit and currency reform merited
consideration. Familiar with British as well as American banking practices, for long
the imaginative president of the First National Bank of Chicago and the outstanding
member of the Chicago Clearing House Committee, Forgan had been made vice-
chairman of the currency committee of the American Bankers’ Association. An early
advocate of the type of national reserve association ultimately recommended by the
National Monetary Commission, and the creator of the Chicago system of clearing-
house examination of member banks, Forgan helped to formulate the principles on
which the Federal Reserve Act was based. He later served for six years as president
of the Federal Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board.

825

4480 • TO ALEXANDER LAMBERT Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 1, 1907

Dear Alex: Many thanks for your interesting letter and the clipping. Perhaps
you remember the incident of a delegation of extreme antislavery people
calling on Lincoln to get him to take some action which he could not take
and which they said would bring the war to a successful conclusion. They
warned him that the war would be a failure if he did not take this action,
and that he would be responsible for the failure. He answered that whether
he was or was not responsible for the failure, he knew that he would be held
responsible. Of course the same thing is true now. Whether I am or am not
in any degree responsible for the panic, I shall certainly be held responsible.
At present most of those who thus hold me responsible are people who are
bitterly against me anyhow; but of course the feeling will spread to those
who have been my friends, because when the average man loses his money
he is simply like a wounded snake and strikes right and left at anything, inno-
cent or the reverse, that presents itself as conspicuous in his mind. Whether
I can do anything to allay the panic I do not know. All the reactionaries wish
to take advantage of the moment by having me announce that I will abandon
my policies, at least in effect. Inasmuch as I believe that these policies are
absolutely necessary, I shall not abandon them no matter what may be the
stress for the time being. The big financial men, moreover, seize the occasion
to try to escape from all governmental control, and believe they can now
thus escape. My judgment is more firmly than ever that they must be brought
under control, and that the only way to free them from the undesirable con-
trol of the states is to secure a more adequate control on the part of the na-
tion. The situation is unpleasant and perplexing. I shall do my best to meet
the needs of the-hour, but I shall not do it in a way that will work harm in
the future, and if I must choose between a temporary good and the ultimate
good, my choice must necessarily be the latter.

Many thanks about the bearskins. I will be greatly obliged if you will
have those photographs sent to me as soon as possible. While on our bear
hunt and return I practically finished what I intended to write on the sub-
ject, and I should now like to get all about it off my hands and send it to the
Scribners, so as to have not even the smallest matter to distract me from my
legitimate work. 1

With love to Mrs. Lambert, believe me, Ever yours

[Handwritten] If it were possible to put a few men like Hemze, Morse
or Barney m prison, more would be accomplished for permanent betterment
than in any other way.

1 “In the Louisiana Canebrakes” was published in January, Scribner's, 43 47-60 (Jan-
uary 1908)

826

448 I * TO REGIS HENRI POST

Roosevelt Mss .
Washington, November 2, 1907

My dear P ost: I cannot say how reluctant I am to write you as I must in this
letter. I have seen the article in the Porto Rico Review > the Boston Herald ,
and other papers, as to your interview with the school superintendents and
the remarks you are alleged to have made to them. 1 Many people, including
various ministers, have called my attention to the matter. I have gone over
it with the Secretary of the Interior, the Attorney General, and Beekman Wm-
throp. Judging from what you are reported to have said in explanation, it
would appear that, even tho garbled, the account as published has a sub-
stantial basis of truth, except that you wxre sober. If you can completely and
categorically deny all these statements, of course the matter has a different
complexion, and if you make such denial I shall then myself conduct an
examination into the matter by summoning some of the school superintend-
ents before and finding out just what occurred. It appears, for instance, from
the Herald that there is m existence a copy of the paper drawn up by the
officials for presentation at Washington as a result of your speech, which was
subsequently withheld by reason of your apology. If the statements in that
paper are substantially true, they alone would prevent any possibility of your
confirmation by the Senate. There are said to be affidavits by some of those
present m support of the statements made in the press.

Now, unless you can make such categorical denial, and can feel that such
an investigation as that which I shall then undertake will completely clear you,
I advise you to resign. If there is any substantial truth for the story, it would
in any event make it impossible to send your name m to the Senate or get
you confirmed. But what is more important, I do not feel that I could with
justice to the Island leave you in as Governor under such circumstances. You
have shown many good qualities, and many high qualities, and have done
good work in many positions in the past, but I do not feel that, if this inci-
dent is substantially true, it would be wise or safe to leave you in this par-
ticular position as Governor of Porto Rico. *

With the utmost regret, believe me, Sincerely yours

4482 * TO RICHARD HENRY DANA Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 2, 1907

My dear Dana: First, let me thank you for your very kind personal letter.
Now, about the civil service communications. As you know, I think the

1 Post, it was reported, had while drunk accused the school superintendents and the
missionaries in Porto Rico of retarding progress and impeding the administration of
government in the island Post explained that his statement, made privately and
sobeily m a private home, had been exaggerated, although he did not apologize for
what he had said Roosevelt limited his punishment to an official reprimand, see No.

4523 *

827

Archie Sanders case 1 a ridiculous one for the Association to take up. He is
in office still, I may mention. His resignation was asked for because on good
authority I was informed that he was neglecting his business by mixing in
politics. The man making the statement profest also to say that it was de-
sired by Governor Hughes. When Governor Hughes repudiated the request
I felt less certain, tho still I am inclined to believe, that ultimately there may
have to be a change made. I send you for your personal information the
following from the editor of a newspaper, demanding to know why he is
still kept in office:

I have just written to Secretary Cortelyou as follows: “The political activity of
Archie D. Sanders, collector of internal revenue for the Western New York
district, makes it apparent that the time has come for the acceptance of the resig-
nation rendered by him some time ago and the appointment of his successor. At
your distance from the scene the situation may not seem alarming, but, never-
theless, his retention in office, coupled with the reports that are afloat to the
effect that he is secure in his place through assurances ‘from headquarters’ that
he is not to be disturbed, has put a lot of courage in the Wadsworth people, who
boast that their machine will win easily m the caucuses, which are about to be
called. It is said by the Sanders element, pointing to the fact that Mr. Sanders has
not been superceded, that he is still in favor in Washington and it is told to
ambitious men looking for preferment that they must look to him to be taken
care of.

“Mr. Sanders is putting up the fight of his political existence and he does not
intend to be quiet a minute, or leave a stone unturned, but purposes to devote his
time and all his energy to retain control of the organization in Genesee County.
He himself has said to me that he felt it was only a question of time when he
would be called upon to give up his office to another and that the only thing for
him to do was to put up the strongest fight he knew how to. ‘What else can I do^ 3 ’
he asked. He said this to me a week ago, and he has been active all the time
since. His deputies also are reputed to be active, carrying out his instructions
politically, and I know that one of them this afternoon was mixing up in Batavia
in the contest that is now on, with Mr. Sanders in a hotel only a block or two
away directing the campaign.”

Mr. Sanders makes not the slightest pretense that he does not hold his
position for political reasons and for political purposes, and there is an ele-
ment of pure comedy in the civil service reformers’ having taken up his

1 Archie D. Sanders, collector of internal revenue at Rochester, was an active ally
of James W. Wadsworth, who was then concentrating his political energies in oppo-
sition to Governor Hughes Wadsworth’s supporters were, among other things, ef-
fectively frustrating Hughes’ efforts to remove from office Otto Kelsey, New York
superintendent of insurance To demonstrate the governor’s retaliatory powers, one
of his followers asked Roosevelt to demand Sanders’ resignation. This the President
did. Wadsworth at once announced that he was being persecuted. Hughes, however,
told the press that he had neither wanted nor asked for assistance from Washington.
The governor explained that he relied on aroused and indignant public opinion (and
not, by inference, on patronage) to carry through his program. Unimpressed, the
New York Senate continued to refuse to remove Kelsey Adversely impressed, Roose-
velt then refused to accept Sanders’ resignation. The episode lingered long and bit-
terly m the President’s mind, see No. 4846.

828

case. He is the political boss of the county in which he lives, who was ap-
pointed because he is a political boss, and has not the slightest idea of aban-
doning his political efforts. He may be kept, or he may not be, I can’t say
now. It is a matter of very little importance to me, but from the standpoint
of the Civil Service Reform Association I think it is a real misfortune that
its members should permit themselves to get into such a ridiculous position
as the one they have assumed about Sanders. My position has been that in
the classified service there shall be no political activity, and that outside of
the classified service the man shall not neglect his duties; but I have never
endeavored to take what I regarded as the entirely hypocritical position
which President Cleveland was led to take, and then abandon, with reference
to “offensive partisanship” in these positions where the man is nominated by
the President and confirmed by the Senate. Certain sets of officers, Indian
agents, consuls, and so forth, I have really made subject to the principles of
civil service reform. I have not tried to do it (because it would be imprac-
ticable to do it) with positions such as that of Sanders’, where I have stated
that the first consideration, outweighing all others, both in the appointment
and retention of any man, must be his probity, coupled with his fitness for
the task; but where the “offensive partisan” theory simply can’t be made to
work

As for the exceptions, I send you my correspondence with the Civil Serv-
ice Commission, calling especial attention to my letter of July 25th, last, as
to the propriety of making exceptions, because of the fact that a given mem-
ber of the family in office has rendered long and faithful service to the Gov-
ernment there may be difference of opinion. I am inclined to think that such
exceptions temper the harshness of the system in practice; altho I am aware
that good reasons can be urged against the practice. I need not point out,
however, the fact that the practice has nothing in common with the practice
of making exceptions for political, or for any improper reasons. Sincerely
yours

4483 * TO JOSEPH LINCOLN STEFFENS Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 4, 1907

My dear Steffens: I understand that Mr. Collier has already sent you my let-
ter to him in reference to your statements about Mr. Moody. He tells me
that Mr. Heney is responsible for these statements. I have a very high regard
for Heney. I know few men who have done more important work for good
than he has done; but, in this instance, if he is the authority for your state-
ments, he has been very unjust to Mr. Moody.

You and I do not agree — and I suppose from our standpoints cannot
agree — about writing on matters like this. You recollect writing me last
year that what I called “gossip” you regarded as particularly valuable for
your purposes. I think that the difficulty is that writing on your method you

829

often make a most admirable impressionist picture, which expresses in a gen-
eral way needed truths, but that the details of your picture, when worked
out in accordance with such an impressionist scheme, are apt to be seriously
in error.

I enclose a copy of the Bristol letter. On its face it seems to be literally
inexplicable, and I have been profoundly uncomfortable about it ever since
it was brought to my attention. Robb and McReynolds of the Department of
Justice, who were the people who first went over the case, were and arc con-
vinced that Bristol’s explanation was insufficient and his conduct dishonor-
able. I have never received any satisfactory explanation, and I do not think
that one can possibly be given; but I finally accepted the view that it was a
break, looking worse on its face than it actually was, and that I would over-
look it, in view of Bristol’s services and the general (altho not universal)
testimony of his good character. But it is mighty uncomfortable to feel that
such a letter is before the Senate Committee which is to vote on Bristol’s
confirmation and express its opinion as to my standards in appointing him;
and nothing but my profound belief in Heney, and my determination to
back him up at all hazards in his work, would make me stand by Bristol
after that letter was produced. 1 Sincerely yours

4484 • TO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 4, 1907

My dear Mr. Attorney General: Judge E. H. Gary and Mr. H. C. Frick on
behalf of the Steel Corporation have just called upon me. They state that
there is a certain business firm (the name of which I have not been told, but
which is of real importance in New York business circles) which will un-
doubtedly fail this week if help is not given. Among its assets arc a majority
of the securities of the Tennessee Coal Company. Application has been ur-
gently made to the Steel Corporation to purchase this stock as the only
means of avoiding a failure. 1 Judge Gary and Mr. Frick inform me that as

'The Senate twice refused to confirm Bristol’s reappointment as district attorney
in Oregon. Roosevelt then nominated John McCourt, whom the Senate accepted.

1 Gary and Flick persuaded Roosevelt that the failure of the brokerage house of
Moore and Schley would undo Morgan’s and Cortelyou’s previous week’s work in
staying the panic (see No. 4473). During the second week of the panic, the runs on
the trust companies, especially the Trust Company of America, continued relent-
lessly Before the weekend Morgan estimated that only $25,000,000 supplied by the
other banks could prevent that company’s suspension At the same time the firm of
Moore and Schley, which was heavily in debt to several New York banks, was ap-
proaching insolvency. Its failure, the New York bankers were convinced, would not
only prevent the raising of the funds necessary to save the Trust Company of
America, but by driving security prices still lower would force the closing of the
Stock Exchange.

Roosevelt’s decision not to object to the purchase of the stock of the Tennessee
Coal and Iron Company did rally the market and assist in making possible the col-
lection of money which saved the Trust Company of America It was one of a series

830

a mere business transaction they; do not care to purchase the stock; that under
ordinary circumstances they would not consider purchasing the stock be-
cause but little benefit will come to the Steel Corporation from the purchase,
that they are aware that the purchase will be used as a handle for attack upon
them on the ground that they are striving to secure a monopoly of the busi-
ness and prevent competition — not that this would represent what could
honestly be said, but what might recklessly and untruthfully be said. They
further inform me that as a matter of fact the policy of the Company has
been to decline to acquire more than sixty per cent of the steel properties,
and that this purpose has been persevered m for several years past, with the
object of preventing these accusations, and as a matter of fact their propor-
tion of steel properties has slightly decreased, so that it is below this sixty
per cent, and the acquisition of the property in question will not raise it
above sixty per cent. But they feel that it is immensely to their interest, as to
the interest of every responsible businessman, to try to prevent a panic and
general industrial smashup at this time, and that they are willing to go into
this transaction, which they would not otherwise go into, because it seems
the opinion of those best fitted to express judgment in New York that it will
be an important factor in preventing a break that might be ruinous; and that
this has been urged upon them by the combination of the most responsible
bankers in New York who are now thus engaged in endeavoring to save the
situation. But they asserted they did not wish to do this if I stated that it
ought not to be done. I answered that while of course I could not advise
them to take the action proposed, I felt it no public duty of mine to interpose
any objection. Sincerely yours

4485 TO ROBERT BRIDGES Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 5, 1907

My dear Bridges: I enclose chapters XII and XIII and the introduction to the
second edition of Outdoor Pastimes. Please drop out the appendix to the first
edition, as I have embodied whatever of it is necessary in chapter XII. Chap-
ter XIII contains the article you have already published in Scribner's, but
also contains some additional matter, so I should like you to use this manu-
script and not the article as it appeared in Scribner's for the chapter in the
book. The other chapter — “In the Louisiana Canebrakes” — contains the
account of the bear hunt. I do not know whether you will want to use in
the magazine the concluding portion or not. In any event I suggest that the
footnote be left out in the magazine. If you do not want to use the conclud-
ing portion you might stop at the end of page 22. Do just as you choose.

of steps taken to stabilize an uncertain situation and as such, while important, hardly
of extraordinary individual significance Such significance has, however, been as-
signed it in history by virtue of the exaggerated attention paid to the Presidential
decision first by hostile politicians m 1908 and 1912 and later by almost every his-
torian who has considered the period

8 3 I

Lambert will bring you his photos himself. What ought to have been the
best ones did not develop. I think you will find three or four perhaps you
can use in the magazine, but I am not sure that any of them are worth while
putting in the book. If you will send me those you choose, or will tell me
what they are, I will give you the details for them. As I understand it, all
four of the jumping pictures in the other chapter will be used in the book.

When will the article appear in Scribner's, and when will the book ap-
pear?

It seems to me that this is a shorter article than my article on the Colo-
rado bear hunt. Am I correct? I shall have to ask you to look back in your
magazine and find out. If so, especially in view of the matter of the photos,
do not feel obliged to pay me as much as you paid me for the Colorado bear
hunt. If my memory is correct you said that for this canebrake bear article,
if I wrote it, you would pay me $1300, the amount you paid before. But I
may be in error. If I am correct, and if the article is shorter than you ex-
pected, or otherwise not what you expected, especially in view of the photos,
then instead of paying me the $1500 pay me exactly what you think the
article is worth to you. Please write me with entire frankness in return. Of
this new edition would it be possible to have a few copies in that big special
form.? Sincerely yours

4486 • TO HENRY CABOT LODGE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 6, 1907

Dear Cabot: The results yesterday were checkered. On the whole I think
they were favorable; and the thing that delighted me most was the sweeping
victory in Massachusetts, with the humiliation of Whitney. Give my warm-
est regards to both Guild and Draper, and tell them how sincerely rejoiced
I am. Next only to Massachusetts was my delight in the fact that we have
apparently won in Kentucky. This I regard as most important. 1 I was very
sorry that we lost in New Jersey, 2 and that Burton was beaten by Johnson
in Cleveland. As for the defeat of fusion in New York, that was foreordained
and I think was richly deserved. It is an outrage that Parsons, who is a good
fellow, should have been such a fool as to make an alliance with Hearst.® I

‘Augustus E Willson, the Republican candidate, had been elected Governor of
Kentucky This was the second time m the history of the party, the first time since
1895, that the party won that office Although the Democrats m 1907 earned Mary-
land, Republican prognosticators chose to interpret the election of Willson as a por-
tent of Republican success in the border states in 1908. They erred.

‘The Republicans had not lost. Their candidate, John Franklin Fort, was elected
governor and his party controlled both houses of the legislature. In Jersey City, how-
ever, Republican Mayor Mark A. Fagan, a sincere and capable reformer, lost his
campaign for re-election largely because the local organization deserted him.
“There have always been at any given time a few elusive figures like Herbert Par-
sons in our history — such men as Bainbndge Colby, George L. Record, or John C
Winant. Possessed of a following, a record of achievement, and a brightly beckon-
ing future, they find themselves restive within the party lines. Frequently they break

832

could not believe it when I first saw it. Hughes practically advised it. By the
way, he is expecting to be put up by the Standard Oil people. They are
financing the campaign for him everywhere and working thru the Baptist
Church.

Love to Nannie. Ever yours

4487 • TO RICHARD WILSON KNOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 7, 1907

My dear Mr . Knott: It seems to me that your suggestions are sound. I shall
go over them with Secretary Cortelyou. One of our difficulties is that when
we do as we have been constantly doing for the last six months, that is, put
money out into the country districts, nine tenths of it at once gravitates
back to New York or some other big financial centre. 1 There is not one
country bank in ten that keeps the money, or any appreciable portion of it,
that is distributed. We had hoped that by distributing money in the country
districts we would secure some permanent good, for everybody has been
talking as if that vas what was needed. Really it seems to have produced
very little effect, and all the remedial measures have had to be applied to
New York simply because everything centered there.

I am delighted with the result m Kentucky. Sincerely yours

4488 • TO ANSLRY WILCOX

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, November 8, 1907

My dear AU . Wilcox: Any letter from you will always receive my careful
attention, and I know, my dear fellow, that you are only animated by per-
sonal affection and by a desire to see me do my work aright.

I entirely realize that there has been some misapprehension of what I
have said (for what I said, itself, cannot be objected to by any upright and
reasonable man); but the chief people who are responsible for this misap-
prehension aie the Rdward Shepaids. You say that many of your friends

out of the tanks, ns much apparently for leasons of mere temperament as of con-
science, to take tip snangc and temporary alliances. It is difficult with these men, as
it is not with the announced goo-goos, to trace, at the end of their careers, one in-
creasing put pose motivating their independent position For instance, Parsons m 1907
had been entrusted by Roosevelt with the Republican organization in New York
Cm. 1 lost tie as cvet to the old Platt machine and at odds with Hughes, whom he
pei hnps envied, Parsons set up a weird alliance with William Randolph Hearst, whose
principles of social refotm appaiently attracted him. A fusion ticket composed of
Pat sons Republicans and lepiesentativcs of Hcarst’s Independent League was de-
feated In 1008 Parsons, joining the Old Guard of his party, for long opposed Hughes
n011111v.it ion. i>v i<)it he was a Piogtuvmo, four years later a Republican, and foM
y ca , s .hut U1.1t, because of the League issue, a supporter of Cot for the Presidency

1 In order liuiluate the movement of crops, Coitelyou, beginning on August 28,
had nude weekly deposits at licasuty funds in national banks throughout the

country.

833

“are feeling keenly that there is much truth in what Shepard said in his re-
cent Brooklyn speech.” This gives me a very vivid idea of the mischief
that can be done by deliberate mendacity, such as Edward Shepard was
guilty of, in misleading men as good as yourself. You probably know Mr.
Shepard, and you are quite welcome to show him this letter. In the speech
in question he was guilty of willful misrepresentation. I do not mean that he
was merely guilty of untruth; I mean that he was guilty of deliberate and
willful untruth, either intentionally, or with a reckless disregard of facts
which he could easily have found out, which puts his conduct in no better
light. I am not speaking of what were merely matters of opinion on the
part of Mr. Shepard. I am speaking of him where he said:

But when a man charged with enormous responsibilities, whose duty it is not to
speak until he knows, not to make charges until he knows that he can make good,
when such a man goes over the country, with every ear open to his words, and
charges men of wealth and standing with crimes, saying that almost every captain
of industry should be behind the bars, his words have a much greater effect than
if he were a mere private citizen.

And when he, from the White House, says that he will send from ten to
fifty capitalists to jail, it attacks the very center of our confidence in our own in-
stitutions.

Now, I call your attention to the fact that in this utterance he first of all
says that it is my duty, the duty of the President, not to speak until I know,
and not to make charges until I know I can make them good. In this Mr.
Shepard is quite right, and the duty is as obligatory upon him, a lawyer, who
ought to know something of evidence, something about criminal libel. Yet
in this very same sentence where he says this as to my duty, he goes on to
speak about what he does not know, or else what he knows to be untrue, and
to make charges which he either knows or ought to know that he cannot
make good. He says in this sentence that I have been saying “that almost
every captain of industry should be behind the bars.” I have never said any
such thing, and he either knows it or ought to know it. In the next sentence
he says that I have said that I “would send from ten to fifty capitalists to
jail.” I have never said such a thing, and he either knows it or ought to know
it. When Mr. Shepard makes such statements as these he is guilty of delib-
erate and willful untruth. He is not a man of any particular importance and
it is not worth my while to answer him; but if you know him and ever see
him, inasmuch as you have quoted him to me, you are quite welcome to show
this letter to him and to say that I will gladly repeat to him, if I ever come
across him, and in even more emphatic language, what I here say to you
about him.

The trouble has come, my dear Mr. Wilcox, primarily, because of what
certain big financiers did in a speculative spirit; secondarily, because the
movement which I started has resulted in the uncovering of this rascality

834

a year or two sooner than it would otherwise have been discovered, and in
the third place, because papers like the Sun, Times and Harper's Weekly ,
read by the financial classes and I believe financed by them also, and indi-
viduals like Shepard, in the effort to attack me, continually and habitually
not merely misquote what I say, but deliberately invent statements which I
have never uttered, and attribute to me an attitude which I have never held.
They may have hurt me a little by this; but the people they have really
damaged are the members of the business community whom they have per-
suaded to believe that I am attacking all wealth, preaching hostility against
all rich men, and failing to discriminate between rich men who are honest
and rich men who are dishonest. I am well aware how difficult it is to get
people to understand what is said or to read what is said; but remember that
it is not the “yellow press” which is responsible in this matter. The yellow
press has endeavored to misrepresent me by stating that I have not gone far
enough in attacking the dishonest rich. It is the so-called conservative press,
the capitalist press, that has misrepresented me by stating that I have gone
too far.

I do not care for this letter to be published; altho, as I say, you are most
welcome to show it to Mr. Shepard; and I shall be glad of the chance to tell
him in person what I here put down. I do not wish it published because
nothing whatever is gained by answering these people. When one of their
untruths is corrected they simply take refuge in another, and the only effec-
tive answer is to go on with the work and let it speak for itself.

With great regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

P.S, When my next volume of speeches are out I am going to send them
to you that you may suffer what I confess is the great and unmerited punish-
ment of reading them, so as to be able to pick out just the particular speech
which you think contains unsound doctrine, of which you are then to ad-
vise me.

4489 • TO WILLIAM EMLEN ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 9, 1907

Dear Emlen: Most emphatically, I do not wish to run again for President. As
I think I have made this remark in public, and in private letters which were
not marked private, several hundred times, in addition to saying it quite as
often m private conversation, it really does not seem advisable to say any-
thing more at present. I find that it is absolutely useless to try to correct
untruths or misrepresentations even of the most flagrant kind in the news-
papers. If I should say anything whatever about not running again it would
cause a furor for one week and then the next week they would say I was
intriguing for a renomination and would expect a denial. The Times , Sun,
Harper's Weekly , Evening Post, and the like are engaged in a campaign of
constant falsehood. They will repeat any falsehood that comes into their

835

heads which will be harmful, just as they have been doing in connection with
the panic. If the falsehood is corrected they will do as the Times did in its
editorial of yesterday and immediately repeat another falsehood. It is not
worth while paying any heed to them. If I said anything whatever about not
running again at this time, the Times, Sun, Harper's Weekly, etc., would
hail it with glee as something entirely new and a change in policy on my
part brought about by, and showing my recognition of, the fact that I was
responsible for the panic!

About the financial business, I have this queer difficulty The movement
for the currency legislation which you dread comes from the bankers and
businessmen, from the chambers of commerce of the country. It derives its
sole strength from them. I gravely question its wisdom. I feel, as you feel,
that our present situation is the result of a financial debauch, that is, that it is
the result of extravagance and reckless speculation intensified by the effect
of a few striking instances of dishonesty m high places. I do not think any
currency law could guarantee us against a recurrence of these conditions;
but as I am not an expert in finance, it is a matter of a good deal of difficulty
for me to explain to those who claim to be, why I do not intend to back up
their proposals. Sincerely yours

4490 • to lucius burrie swift Roosevelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November 9, 1907

Dear Swift: I have your letter of the nth and the accompanying pamphlet.
I agree with your suggestion as to a central bank for rediscount and as a
Government depository, but I do not believe we can get it adopted in Con-
gress and there is very strong distrust of the asset currency system. Congress
is much to blame for not acting on the currency, but the chief trouble is that
the big businessmen are absolutely divided on the subject.

It was very nice of you to write me not to be worried by the stock-
watering crowd You may be sure that they do not affect me in the least.
If business conditions grow such that a statement that dishonesty will be
punished tends to upset them, it is a sure sign that they were ripe for an
upsetting.

With hearty regard and thanks, believe me, Sincerely yours

4491 * TO ALICE ROOSEVELT LONGWORTH Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 10, 1907

Darling Alice: I was much concerned to learn that you were not well; and
very glad when Mother heard thru Mrs. Longworth that you were better.
I hate to think of you so far away from us when you are sick.

A Harvard man named Keys, who I think was a ’77 football player and

83d

an A. D. man, but whom I would not know if I saw him, sent me a foolish
and impertinent telegram about Cincinnati political conditions three or four
days before the election, which really made me feel as if he was an outpatient
of bedlam . 1 1 shall have to find out from Nick if he is a Roosevelt Club man,
and what the Roosevelt Club has been doing. 2 I wish to Heaven that Taft
had never gotten me into the organization. You are quite right about the
Taft movement being hurt by what has happened, especially in Cleveland. I
still think that he is the most likely man for the nomination, and it may be
that the movement for him will spring up with fresh vigor after he gets
home, but I do not think much of Vorys, and m spite of the most explicit
talk with him on my part and on Jim Garfield’s, in which I explained that
while I would prefer to have Taft succeed me rather than anyone else, yet
that I certainly could not undertake to dictate his nomination, and that our
final action must be determined by disinterested effort to find out who would
be the best and most available candidate — in spite of his talk he keeps trying
to give the impression that I am in honor bound to come out and declare
myself for Taft and intend to do so. If I had done anything of the kind
hitherto, New York would have been a unit for Hughes; and the worst
thing the Taft managers could do would be to make Cortelyou hostile to
them, or to have it appear that I was trying to make Cortelyou get out of
a race which he has a perfect right to enter.

Excepting for Cleveland the results of the elections were exceedingly
good.

I had a most interesting trip down the Mississippi, and enjoyed my hunt.

Give my love to Nick. Your loving father

[Handwritten] If, as I think likely, we now have six or eight months
depression, then poor Taft will suffer because he is my close friend and
representative, for if times are at all hard many men will, to use the vernacu-
lar of our own provincial city, try how they can “vote furdest away from”
me.

4492 • to david s. cowles Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November 1 1, 1907

My dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the 9th instant and in reply
beg to state that I am very firmly of the belief that wood pulp and forest

1 John Baker Keys, treasurer of the City Party, a reform organization m Cincinnati,
had telegraphed Roosevelt requesting him and Nicholas Longworth to endorse the
reform movement m the 1907 election He threatened, if they refused, to publish his

telegram to the President. , , , . _ __

“The Roosevelt Club of Cincinnati was apparently an independent organization
which behaved, m spite of its name, in the maimer of the Good Government Clubs
in New York City in the 1890’s. In 1907 the club resisted the co-operation of Cox
which had become so important for the nomination of Taft.

837

products should not pay any duty. 1 Our supply of timber is being exhausted
altogether too rapidly in this country, and the exhaustion should be checked
in every possible way instead of stimulated. In my judgment we cannot af-
ford because of any temporary advantage to any industry to refuse to follow
out this policy. Sincerely yours

4493 • to braxton bragg comer Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 1 1, 1907

My dear Governor : 1 The natural resources of the territory of the United
States were, at the time of settlement, richer, more varied, and more available
than those of any other equal area on the surface of the earth. The develop-
ment of these resources has given us, for more than a century, a rate of
increase in population and wealth undreamed of by the men who founded
our Government and without parallel in history. It is obvious that the pros-
perity which we now enjoy rests directly upon these resources. It is equally
obvious that the vigor and success which we desire and foresee for this Nation
in the future must have this as its ultimate material basis.

In view of these evident facts it seems to me time for the country to take
account of its natural resources, and to inquire how long they are likely to
last. We are prosperous now; we should not forget that it will be just as
important to our descendants to be prosperous in their time as it is to us to be
prosperous in our time.

Recently I exprest the opinion that there is no other question now be-
fore the Nation of equal gravity with the question of the conservation of our
natural resources; and I added that it is the plain duty of those of us who, for
the moment, are responsible, to make inventory of the natural resources
which have been handed down to us, to forecast as well as we may the needs of
the future, and so to handle the great sources of our prosperity as not to
destroy in advance all hope of the prosperity of our descendants.

1 Newspaper reports of a statement by Roosevelt recommending the abolition of the
duty on wood pulp had inspired a long letter of protest from David S. Cowles, presi-
dent of W. H. Parsons and Company and of the American Paper and Pulp Asso-
ciation. Roosevelt had made his recommendation to a delegation of newspaper pub-
lishers who, speaking for themselves and for the national organizations of printers,
stereotypers, pressmen and etchers, had asked for a change in the tariff to remedy the
alleged monopoly control of newsprint prices. Cowles, inviting an investigation of
the wood pulp industry, vigorously denied that such a monopoly existed Suggesting
that the publishers confused their interests with the public good, he maintained that
the wood pulp and newsprint industry already had only nominal tariff protection.
With less than this, he argued, the industry could not operate. In closing, Cowles
declared that, contrary to the claims of many conservationists, the wood pulp indus-
try used only an unimportant fraction of the total timber cut yearly m the United
States Although Roosevelt was unconvinced, Republican protectionists in Congress,
sympathizing with Cowles’ views, buried in committee twenty-two bills introduced
at the next session to abolish or reduce the duty on wood pulp.

1 Braxton Bragg Comer, Democratic Governor of Alabama, 1907-1911.

838

f ^ ls evident that the abundant natural resources on which the welfare of
this Nation rests are becoming depleted and in not a few cases are already
exhausted. This is true of all portions of the United States, it is especially true
of the longer-settled communities of the East. The gravity of the situation
must, I believe, appeal with special force to the Governors of the States
because of their close relations to the people and their responsibility for the
welfare of their communities. I have therefore decided, in accordance with
the suggestion of the Inland Waterways Commission, to ask the Governors
of the States and Territories to meet at the White House on May 13, 14 and
15, to confer with the President and with each other upon the conservation
of natural resources.

It gives me great pleasure to invite you to take part in this conference. I
should be glad to have you select three citizens to accompany you and to
attend the conference as your assistants or advisors. I shall also invite the
Senators and Representatives of the Sixtieth Congress to be present at the
sessions so far as their duties will permit.

The matters to be considered at this conference are not confined to any
region or group of States, but are of vital concern to the Nation as a whole
and to all the people. These subjects include the use and conservation of the
mineral resources, the resources of the land, and the resources of the waters,
m every part of our territory

In order to open discussion I shall invite a few recognized authorities to
present brief descriptions of actual facts and conditions, without argument,
leaving the conference to deal with each topic as it may elect. The members
of the Inland Waterways Commission will be present in order to share with
me the benefit of information and suggestion, and, if desired, to set forth their
provisional plans and conclusions.

Facts, which I cannot gainsay, force me to believe that the conservation
of our natural resources is the most weighty question now before the people
of the United States. If this is so, the proposed conference, which is the
first of its kind, will be among the most important gatherings in our history
in its effects upon the welfare of all our people.

I earnestly hope, my dear Governor, that you will find it possible to be
present. 2 Sincerely yours

a To the White House conference on resources Roosevelt invited the governors of
every state and territory, the members of the Cabinet, and many editors, industrial-
ists, and conservation experts. Their serious discussions helped impress the nation
with the importance of the conservation movement and led to the appointment of
the National Conservation Commission, which, with Gifford Pinchot as chairman,
m co-operation with federal and state authorities collected and published significant
information on the country’s resources (see No. 4750 and Robbins, Our Landed
Heritage, pp 354 ff.). The White House conference served also, for the first time in
American history, to bring together in one place all the state governors. The dem-
onstrated usefulness of such a meeting for the consideration of problems of mutual
interest led to the institution of annual governors’ conferences

839

4494 ' T0 GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, November 1 1, 1907

My dear Sir George: I have now read thru your last volume. It is a little
difficult to say just what I feel about your history without subjecting you
to the discomfort always felt by a fastidious man when he suspects he is
overpraised. Yet I cannot refrain from expressing my sincere opinion that
you have not only written the final history of our revolution, but that you
have done what is given to so very, very few men to do — that you have
written one of the few histories which can deservedly be called great. I do
not want to be misled by national feeling; and yet I cannot help believing that
the American Revolution was one of the great histone events which will
always stand forth in the story of mankind, and now we have been fortunate
enough to see that rare combination of a great historic event treated by a
great writer, a great student, a great historian. How fortunate we should
be if Napier had written not merely the Peninsular War, but all of Napole-
on’s campaigns! How fortunate we should be if there had been a Thucydides
to write of Alexander as he actually wrote of the Peloponnesian War! How
I wish that some man could arise to do, for the great English civil war of the
17th century, or for the American civil war of the 19th century, what
Macaulay did for the English revolution and its hero! 1 Well, it seems to me
that you have done just this for the American revolution.

By the way, I am especially pleased at the justice you did to Lord Grey,
he who cut up Wayne’s troops with the bayonet, and thereby taught Wayne
a lesson which Stony Point and the Fallen Timbers afterwards showed he had
learned in good fashion. Was this Grey the ancestor of either your present
Foreign Secretary or present Governor General in Canada 3 I have always
felt a keen sympathy with the men who receive no credit for their great and
brilliant deeds simply because an inexorable fate has compelled them to fight
on the losing side. The very greatest captains in history, the Hannibals and
Napoleons, leave a fame undimmed by the fact of final failure, for their
colossal might forces the unwilling attention of mankind, and the recognition
of the fact that no human greatness can in the end prevail against the stars
in their courses. But the lesser men are generally judged merely by success.
In the Revolutionary War, for instance, I have never felt that Cornwallis
received justice, or that minor men like Tarleton and Grey received justice.
(I am putting them all together from a military standpoint and without any
intention at the moment of alluding to any possible differences of character
among them.) It was not possible that Cornwallis should win, as events actu-
ally were; yet he defeated army after army, battling always against superior

1 It is possible that in his seventeen volumes, the last one published foui yeais before
this letter was wutten, Samuel Rawson Gardiner did as much for the English Civil
War as Macaulay did for the English Revolution At any rate it is hoped that
Trevelyan duectcd the Presidential attention to the work of this calm, clcai, inde-
fatigable intelligence.

840

numbers, conquered the southern States — tho no man with his resources
could have held them down — and succumbed only when neither he nor
anyone else could have altered the final outcome by further resistance. Tarle-
ton was a most dashing leader of dragoons in partisan warfare, and if he was
often ruthlessly unsparing, so were many among his opponents.

I also thank you for the very interesting Marginal Notes by Lord Macau-
lay. It is the kind of book that I rejoice m, especially when I have many
things to worry me, and do not feel like reading books that are too long or
too serious; unless they are also very interesting!

I shall inflict upon you the unmerited pumshment of sending you the
next volume of my speeches and messages, which will be out m a month or
so. I have had many questions to deal with since I have been President, and
altho there has been no great crisis, still there has been much to cause con-
cern, and more than one problem of far more than passing moment to solve.
Faithfully yours

4495 • to Nicholas longworth Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November i 1, 1907

Dear Nick: Don’t you think that the election of Willson as Governor has
given an entirely new turn to Kentucky matters^ 3 At last we have a Republi-
can Governor of Kentucky, and it seems to me that where I possibly can I
should support him. I thoroly like Ernst, 1 but if he and the newly elected
Governor are in a snarl, I feel that it would not do at the very outset to give
the Governor the impression that the administration was hostile to him.
There is a chance that Kentucky will go Republican next year. Whether it
has a good chance I do not know; but I am sure that it will disappear com-
pletely if we encourage factional rows, as we should do if we began by letting
the impression go abroad that the national administration was not on good
terms with the State administration.

I hope Alice is getting better 2 and that I shall soon see you both. I have
much to talk over with you, notably m connection with the Taft canvass
Always yours

P.S. In my view the only course for Ernst to pursue at the outset of the
Governor’s term and until the Governor has had a chance to show what
there is m him is either to turn in and support him, or, if he cannot do that,
to draw out entirely and make no effort to control appointments. He cer-

1 Richard Pretlow Ernst, Covington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, lawyer, was
active as ever m the Republican politics of both states. In 1907 a Taft worker, Ernst
was also building his own strength, primarily through his factional opposition to
governor-elect Willson of Kentucky Assisted in both endeavors by Kentucky's four
Republican congressmen, Ernst developed increasing influence m the allocation of
federal patronage. The Kentucky Republican delegation helped nominate Taft, but
the schism in the party, for which the two factions were equally responsible, facili-
tated the Democratic victory in the state in 1908
fl Alice had appendicitis.

841

tainly ought not to appear as the opponent of the Republican Governor just
as soon as this Governor is elected.

4496 • TO ROLAND C. DRYER Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 1 1, 1907

Dear Sir : 1 When the question of the new coinage came up we lookt into the
law and found there was no warrant therein for putting “IN GOD WE
TRUST” on the coins. As the custom, altho without legal warrant, had
grown up, however, I might have felt at liberty to keep the inscription had I
approved of its being on the coinage. But as I did not approve of it, I did
not direct that it should again be put on. Of course the matter of the law is
absolutely in the hands of Congress, and any direction of Congress in the
matter will be immediately obeyed. At present, as I have said, there is no
warrant in law for the inscription.

My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to
put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does
no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes
dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the
one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence
which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit. Any use which tends
to cheapen it, and, above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated
in a spirit of levity, is from every standpoint profoundly to be regretted. It
is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national
monuments, in our temples of justice, m our legislative halls, and in build-
ings such as those at West Point and Annapolis — in short, wherever it will
tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But
it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins,
just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertise-
ments. As regards its use on the coinage we have actual experience by winch
to go. In all my life I have never heard any human being speak reverently
of this motto on the coins or show any sign of its having appealed to any
high emotion in him. But I have literally hundreds of times heard it used as an
occasion of, and incitement to, the sneering ridicule which it is above all
things undesirable that so beautiful and exalted a phrase should excite. For
example, thruout the long contest, extending over several decades, on the
free coinage question, the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant
source of jest and ridicule; and this was unavoidable. Everyone must remem-
ber the innumerable cartoons and articles based on phrases like “In God we

‘Reverend Roland C. Dryer of Nunda, New York, was one of the host of sincere
Americans who protested individually and through organizations at the omission of
“In God We Trust” from the new coinage designed by Saint-Gaudcns. Roosevelt’s
leply to Dryer is typical of many he wrote His arguments convinced neither his
critics nor a majority of congressmen who, at the next session of Congress, passed
an act making mandatory the use of the controversial phrase.

842

trust for the other eight cents”; “In God we trust for the short weight”; “In
God we trust for the thirty-seven cents we do not pay”; and so forth and so
forth. Surely I am well within bounds when I say that a use of the phrase
which invites constant levity of this type is most undesirable. If Congress
alters the law and directs me to replace on the coins the sentence in question
the direction will be immediately put into effect; but I very earnestly trust
that the religious sentiment of the country, the spirit of reverence in the
country, will prevent any such action being taken. Sincerely yours

4497 * T0 thomas edward watson Roosevelt Mss .

Washingon, November 12, 1907

My dear Mr . Watson: Many thanks for your letter. In the first place, my dear
sir, I trust I need hardly assure you that I shall not “surrender” to the bankers,
or to anyone else, and there will be no “secret midnight conferences” with
any big financier, or anyone else. I have not seen Mr. Morgan, but I intend to
see him soon, and he will call at the White House just as openly as Mr.
Gompers did the other day, just as openly as he has called in the past, and
just as openly as Mr. Gompers and his associates have more often called in the
past. I know I have your hearty support in the proposition that the doors
of the White House swing open with equal readiness to capitalist and wage-
workers, to the head of a great corporation or a union, or the man who is
neither — all shall have a fair hearing from me, and none shall exert any
influence save what their case, openly stated and openly repeated, warrants.

As to the financial situation, I am not yet by any means clear what I ought
to do. I shall confer with Secretary Cortelyou very carefully.

I wish I could see you in person to talk over several matters. Are you
not to be in Washington sometime in the not too distant future? Sincerely
yours

4498 * TO LAWRENCE FRASER ABBOTT Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 12, 1907

My dear Mr. Abbott: Many thanks for your letter. Of course I have followed
the course of the Outlook. I am afraid it is the only paper the course of
which I do follow! I cannot but believe that you are right in your feeling
that the bankers and businessmen generally will ultimately come to feel about
the course I am advocating as many of the railroad men have already grown
to feel about the legislation which they so bitterly opposed two years ago.
I enclose you a rather remarkable address by President Mather, of the Rock
Island Railway, one of the leading railroad men of the West, and two years
ago one of the most embittered opponents of the rate bill and one of those

*843

who most strongly denounced me as an enemy of capital, a usurper, and so
forth. I have marked the first paragraph. 1

I think you will like my message to Congress. It is what may be called
a good Outlook message, and probably you will recognize several sentences
as having appeared in some of your editorials. Sincerely yours

4499 • TO ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE ROOSCVelt MSS .

Washington, November 12, 1907

My dear Senator : I have your letter of the 9th instant. It simply cannot be
that “organized labor is overwhelmingly for this bill — militantly for it,” as
you state. Gompers and twenty labor leaders came m to see me on Saturday,
and when I asked them about the bill not a single one of them would admit that
he favored it. The utmost that any one of them would say was that he favored
your purpose but was not prepared to commit himself about the bill, for he
did not know whether it would be feasible. Evidently they were afraid that
it would not amount to very much; and moreover, they also felt that when
there was no proper child labor law for the territories which the Govern-
ment directly controlled, it would be difficult to accomplish much under the
interstate commerce clause. Further, I find that our people who would have
to do with interpreting the bill feel that the greatest possible difficulties would
arise in this interpretation, and therefore in executing it. Again, they feel that
the principle is right, but they do not think that it has been worked out, 1
I am sure I need not tell you, my dear fellow, how delighted I was to
find that it was possible to appoint Eddy to the Argentine. 2 It is a big post
and I am sure he will do well there. Faithfully yours

Robert Mather, since 1904 president of the Rock Island Company, had addressed
the National Conference on Trusts on Octobei 23. He began* “Three years ago
President Roosevelt recommended to Congress ... the enactment of a law con-
ferring upon the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to xevisc and prescribe
the rates that should be charged for interstate transp citation. In common with many
others, I thought it unwise to grant this powei to the commission. ... I come here
to-day to admit that the action taken in pursuance of that recommendation was wise,
and to advocate an enlargement of the rate-making power of the Federal commis-
sion.” Mather advocated this increase, he explained, to bring to an end the xate chaos
produced by the rate-making activities of state commissions. As he ably demon-
strated, compulsory rate changes within the borders of a state m fact affected inter-
state transportation rates. The power to make these changes, he argued, lodged
only m and should be exercised only by the national government; see Robert Mather,
“Regulation of Transportation Rates,” Proceedings of the National Conference on
Trusts and Combinations , 1907, pp. 272-278

1 Beveridge for some time had been seeking the President’s support for his proposed
bill to exclude from interstate commerce the products of child labor. Although
Roosevelt, on the grounds of expediency and constitutionality, declined this support,
Beveridge introduced the bill at the next session of Congress where it died m com-
mittee; see Bowers, Beveridge , pp. 264-266.

2 In August 1907 Beveridge had married Catherine Eddy, whose brother, Spencer,
was the first secretary of the American Embassy in Berlin. When Ambassador Tower
resigned, Beveridge asked Roosevelt to appoint Eddy to the vacancy. After Roose-

844

4500 • TO WILLIS GRANT JOHNSON

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, November 13, 1907

Dear Mr. Johnson : 1 Your very interesting account of the plan for an Ameri-
can Institute School of Forestry and Horticulture is received. The situation
which you describe seems to me to open for the Institute a possibility of
unique usefulness. Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Forest Service, bears
my personal message on the subject, and I have telegraphed you today to
that effect.

It is impossible for me to set forth my views adequately in a letter. I
believe, however, that to use the funds for a school of forestry and horti-
culture in New York City would simply duplicate facilities for doing work
which can be better done elsewhere. 2 Instead the Institute can, if it will, take
the lead in a work of vital and permanent importance. The betterment of
the conditions of rural life is in my judgment one of the largest fields for
usefulness of the day, and of the century. And nothing could be more
exactly in line with the purposes for which the Institute exists, as I under-
stand those purposes. Very sincerely yours

4501 • TO DOUGLAS ROBINSON

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, November 16, 1907

Dear Douglas: I deeply appreciate your thoughtful and affectionate letter.
Of course I am greatly harassed and concerned over the situation. Every
kind of suggestion is made to me; almost always impracticably. I am doing
everything I have power to do, but the fundamental fact is that the public is
suffering from a spasm of lack of confidence. Most of this lack of confidence
is absolutely unreasonable, and therefore we can do nothing with it. There is
a part for which there is substantial basis, however. There has been so much
trickery and dishonesty in high places; the exposures about Harriman, Rocke-
feller, Hemze, Barney, Morse, Ryan, the insurance men, and others, have
caused such a genuine shock to people that they have begun to be afraid that
every bank really has something rotten in it. In other words, they have past

velt refused this request, the senator asked that the selection of Tower’s replacement
be made m such a way that it would create a desirable vacancy for Eddy elsewhere.
Roosevelt again declined, refusing to make an appointment on such a basis. But in a
most roundabout fashion Eddy obtained an appointment apparently satisfying to bod,
him and his brother-in-law David J. Hill went from the Netherlands to Germany,
Arthur M Beaupre left the Argentine to succeed Hill in the Netherlands, and Spen
ccr Eddy became minister to the Argentine

Willis Grant Johnson, an eminent entomologist, was at that time editor of the

^Roosevel/was referrmg to the extensive facilities at the state-supported College of
Agriculture at Cornell University.

845

thru the period of unreasoning trust and optimism into unreasoning distrust
and pessimism. I shall do everything I can up to the very verge of my power
to restore confidence, to give the banks a chance to get currency into circu-
lation. 1 Whether I can accomplish what I seek to do I cannot say. Of course
if I do not I shall be held responsible for the conditions. As a matter of fact,
with the growth of the speculative spirit and the scandalous dishonesty
among some high financiers combined, made it absolutely certain that we
would come a cropper. I am inclined to think that the exposures which were
largely the result of the policies I inaugurated brought this cropper sooner
than we otherwise should have had it, but I am also very certain that it was
bound to come in a year or two, and that it would have been far more severe
if it had been held off. But if it comes we may as well make up our minds to
the fact that for the time being at any rate, and perhaps permanently, I will
be blamed and that the administration will be held to have gone out under a
cloud. Yet there is nothing that I have done that I would not do over again,
and I am absolutely positive that the principles which I have sought to en-
force are those that must obtain if this Government is to endure. But as you
say, the very people whom I have been seeking to protect by exposing what
is rotten in trusts and railroads, when the dinner pail becomes empty will
feel they would rather have full dinner pails, and watered stocks and other
things against which they used to declaim, rather than to go thru the period
of discomfort when (displacement) readjustment takes place. Poor fellows!
I do not blame them.

Any time you can come on here it would be a very real comfort to see
you. Ever yoms

4502 • TO WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November i< 5 , 1907

My dear Foulke: I have your letter of the 14th instant and will bring it be-
fore Taft. As for the attack upon me by the “interests,” it has been under
way for some time and of course now is more active than ever. There is not
a corrupt scoundrel in Wall Street who has any money at all who won’t spend
as much of it as he can spare in order to discredit me, and where there is
depression in business and consequent suffering among the labor people, the
chance for accomplishing what they desire is immeasurably increased. You
doubtless remember Lincoln’s remark to the abolitionists who told him that
if the war was a failure he would be responsible. He answered that he might
be responsible or might not, but that he knew well that in either event he
would be held responsible. Of course the same thing is true as regards myself
and the panic.

‘For Roosevelt’s action to lestore confidence to put currency into circulation see

No. 4504.

846

I have always been inclined to Bryan’s view on the license matter . 1 About
half of Bryan s views are right. About half are so wrong as to make him,
together with his absolute executive in capacity, a preposterously foolish per-
son for President. I do not believe, as the result of six years’ incumbency of
the White House, that a law which primarily rests on a lawsuit can have
much done with it, but I will carefully go over what you say, and adopt it if
possible.

In reference to the clippings you enclose, I do not know who B. B. John-
son is, but whoever he is, he belongs to the New York Sun, Evening Tost ,
World , Times } Herald \ and Harpefs Weekly type, and is well up to their
standard of mendacity. A comic thing is where he says that “if Mr. Roosevelt
had really been for Taft he would have given the latter’s cause substantial
aid,” because “all he needed to do was to declare at the outset that under
no circumstances would he accept a renomination and then from this high
and commanding position his legitimate influence for Taft would have been
most effective.” Now this is precisely and exactly what I did. It is not only
what I did once, but what I did again and again. Of course B. B. Johnson
knows this. Of course the editor of the News , when he put in Johnson’s
letter, knew it. Now if people make a mistake in facts you can correct it; but
where they deliberately lie, as in the case of Johnson and the editor of the
NewSy there is no use in making a correction. Moreover, the editorial in
the News on Hughes deliberately contradicts this statement of Johnson. The
editorial in the News is in effect a complaint that I have been favoring Taft
against Hughes and a bitter condemnation of me for not supporting Hughes.
The communication in the letter is m effect that I have not been sincere in
favoring Taft. A modicum of honesty in the News would make it acknowl-
edge that the two positions were not consistent; but I do not expect such
honesty, and if I did expect I certainly would not get it.

A curious commentary on Johnson’s statement is the information which
I have just received in a telegram from Alaska, a copy of which I enclose.
Privately I will say that Mr. Taft could not by himself have controlled a
delegate from Alaska by any chance Now they are all for him. This represents
solely what we have been able to accomplish. Of course if I adopted John-
son’s advice at this moment and made another declaration, the effect would
be that in all probability New York would at once declare for Hughes, to
Taft’s very great jeopardy. Hughes has been a good Governor. I think he
would make a good President. But he is not in any shape or way in the same
class with Taft, who I believe would make a great President. He would not
make by any means as good a President as Cortelyou or Knox. I am antago-
nistic to him only m the sense that anyone is antagonistic to a perfectly fair

1 Bryan had proposed that corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be
required to obtain a license from the federal government, and that the license be
revoked if any corporation engaged m practices in restraint of trade.

847

man who desires a certain position when one prefers one of several better
men who are also candidates for that position.

With warm regards to Mrs. Foulke, believe me, Faithfully yours

4503 * TO THOMAS EDWARD WATSON RoOSCVelt Mss ,

Washington, November 16, 1907

My dear Mr. Watson : Many thanks for your letter of the 14th. Before you
receive this you will see that I have done the utmost the law permitted me to
do as regards the issue of Treasury notes. 1

I hope you will come on here the first or second week of December and
take lunch with me. Let it be at least two or three days after Congress has
met. Sincerely yours

4504 • TO GEORGE BRUCE CORTELYOU Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 17, 1907

My dear Mr. Cortelyou ; I have considered your proposal. I approve the issue
of the fifty millions of Panama bonds, which will be immediately available as
the basis for additional currency. I also approve the issue of $100,000,000 or
so much as you may find necessary of $50 three per cent interest-bearing
Government notes, the proceeds of the sale of which can be at once de-
posited by you where the greatest need exists, and especially in the West and
South, where the crops have to be moved . 1 1 have assurance that the leaders

1 Watson’s letter by underscoring the demand m the South and West for positive
government action m meeting the financial crisis perhaps caused Roosevelt to change
the original draft. Written November 16, of the lettci to Cortelyou authorizing the
government bond issues In the final draft (No. 4504) Roosevelt added to the sen-
tence approving the issue of Treasury notes the clause “the proceeds of the sale of
which can be at once deposited by you where the greatest need exists, and especially
in the West and South, where the crops have to be moved.” Actually Cortelyou had
no intention of distributing the proceeds of the sale. See No 4504, note 1.

1 Because of the continuing money shortage, Roosevelt, after consulting with Root,
A 4 eyer, and Cortelyou had decided to authorize the issue of 2 per cent Panama Canal
bonds and 3 per cent one-year Treasury certificates. Although the forceful measures
taken by Cortelyou and Morgan during the first week of the panic had prevented
further suspensions of New York banks and trust companies, they had not checked
the heavy withdrawal of funds By the middle of November, according to Cortel-
you’s estimate, close to $250,000,000 had disappeared from circulation The very large
imports of gold necessary to meet this sudden drain produced severe strains m the
already overextended European money markets. Between October 30 and November
7 the Bank of England’s discount rate rose from 4 Vi per cent to 7 per cent and that
of the Impenal Bank of Germany from 5V2 per cent to 7/2 per cent. For both banks
the rates on November 7 were the highest they had been since 1873. By the middle
of the month London banking leaders were urging the American government to
guarantee bank deposits and even to issue fiat money.

Under the pressure of financial stress, Lombard Street was actually echoing the
demands of the American South and West. There the contraction of currency and
credit necessitated the declaration of bank holidays in several states and the closing
of many of the major commodity exchanges. Moreover, the inability to obtain credit

848

of Congress are considering a currency bill which will meet in permanent
fashion the needs of the situation, and which I believe will be passed at an
early dat e after Congress convenes two weeks hence.

forced immediate sales of grain and cotton which pushed down, commodity prices.
As the prices dropped, demands for government action increased. Typical of these
demands were Biyan’s proposal for a government guarantee of deposits and Wat-
son s for an issue of greenbacks

To meet the crisis m the South and West Cortelyou had deposited about $60,-
000,000 m national banks throughout the country By mid-November, however, with
an actual working-cash balance m the Treasury of only $5,000,000, further deposits
of this kind, by endangering government credit, might have intensified the panic. At
the same time the national banks were having trouble in increasing their circulation
Cortelyou had already authorized the banks to substitute bonds acceptable to savings
banks for government bonds as a basis for bank-note circulation. This action had
been partially nullified by a sharp rise in the price of all such bonds Even at a high
price their supply was extremely limited

To Roosevelt and Cortelyou the most promising solution to the currency strin-
gency was therefore to provide the national banks with government bonds that could
be used immediately as a basis for increased bank-note circulation. Such a “strong
and resolute step” they also believed would “convince the public, both at home and
abroad, that the Government was thoroughly alive to the situation and determined
to give its aid m every possible legal and proper form. The most potent weapon at
such time m bringing a crisis to an end is often as much one of moral effect as of
the definite action taken” For these reasons, the issues were written specifically to
be used as a basis for additional bank-note circulation rather than for private sub-
scription, which would have temporarily withdrawn funds from circulation The 2
per cent interest on the Panama issue discouraged private investors who could easily
obtain securities with higher interest rates, any premium paid on the 3 per cent one-
yeai certificates would absorb the interest To facilitate the expansion of note circu-
lation, Cortelyou, at the suggestion of the New York bankers, permitted the banks
to retain as a deposit 90 per cent of the purchase price of the Panama bonds and
75 per cent of the price of the Treasury certificates. In other words he required a
down payment of only 10 per cent and 25 per cent respectively

The “moral effect” of the announcement of the bond issues was Immediate The
price of gold dropped at once on the European exchanges. Commodity credit eased.
By December, New Orleans reported that cotton was moving normally Bank-note
circulation rose from $631,000,000 on November 15 to $656,000,000 on December 1
and $690,000,000 on December 31, while the deficit in the New York Clearing House
reserves, which by November 15 had reached $54,000,000, was reduced to $20,000,000
before the end of December and by January 18 had been converted to a surplus of
$23,000,000. Recovery was so swift that Cortelyou found it necessary to issue only
$25,000,000 of Panama bonds and $15,000,000 of Treasury certificates

Characteristically, the critics of the Administration claimed that the govern-
ment’s action was “futile” and “unwarranted ” They maintained that heavy imports
of gold and the redress of the balance of trade by increased gram exports and the
cancellation of large orders from Europe would soon have brought the crisis to an
end. Such an evaluation, focusing as it did on the New York money market, did not
sufficiently take into account the national and international situation The govern-
ment action restored London’s confidence in the American financial structure As a
result, the excessive rates on gold were reduced and thus the amount of gold avail-
able to Wall Street was increased. Furthermore, by expandmg bank-note circulation
in Chicago, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and other commodity centers, the bond issue
gave assurance of the availability of funds necessary to move the crops and thus
slowed the drain of funds from New York to the South and West. Simultaneously
increasing the influx of gold and decreasing the outflow of funds, the announcement
of the bond issue as much as any other single factor ended the money stringency m
New York City.

849

What is most needed just at present is that our citizens should realize how
fundamentally sound business conditions in this country are, and how absurd
it is to permit themselves to get into a panic and create a stringency by
hoarding their savings instead of trusting perfectly sound banks. There is no
particle of risk involved in letting business take its natural course, and the
people can help themselves and the country most by putting back into active
circulation the money they are hoarding. The banks and trust companies are
solvent. There is more currency in the country today than there was a
month ago, when the supply was ample. $55,000,000 in gold has been_ im-
ported and the Government has deposited another $60,000,000. These are
facts; and I appeal to the public to co-operate with us in restoring normal
business conditions. The Government will see that the people do not suffer
if only the people themselves will act in a normal way. Crops are good and
business conditions are sound; and we should put the money we have into
circulation in order to meet the needs of our abounding prosperity. There
is no analogy at all with the way things were in 1893. On November 30th
of that year there was in the Treasury but $161,000,000 in gold. On Novem-
ber 14th of this year there was in the Treasury $904,000,000 of gold. Ten
years ago the circulation per capita was $23.23. It is now $33.23. The steps
that you now take, the ability of the Government to back them up, and the
fact that not a particle of risk is involved therein, give the fullest guarantee
of the sound condition of our people and the sound condition of our Treas-
ury. All that our people have to do now is to go ahead with their normal
business in a normal fashion and the whole difficulty disappears; and this end
will be achieved at once if each man will act as he normally docs act, and
as the real conditions of the country’s business fully warrant his now acting.
Sincerely yours

4505 • TO ADOLPHUS BUSCH RoOSevdt MsS.

Washington, November 18, 1907

My dear Mr. Busch : 1 1 thank you for your letter of the 13th instant. I can
assure you that Mr. Cortelyou is straining every nerve to do all that he can

’Adolphus Busch was a tremendous figure in the life of the Middle West at this
time. He had developed in the nineteenth century the light, dry beer called Bud-
weiscr on which, with other brews, his vast fortune rested. Around his central prod-
uct he built up a huge vertical trust including railroads, coal mines, and glass bottle
manufactories His skill m organization and Ins inteiest in scientific research enabled
him to distribute a uniform beer of high quality at great profit throughout the
country

Brewing absoibed only a part of his time and talent He built ice plants, hotels,
and office buildings in the Southwest, he introduced the Diesel engine to the United
States at the turn of the century, he saw to it that his preferred work of ait, “Cus-
ter’s Last Fight,” hung in as many barrooms of the country as possible.

Like some margrave he dispensed charity and hospitality with an open hand,
lived sumptuously at one of his four great homes, traveled widely in his private rail-
road car, and patronized in geneious fashion all the arts. He also served the state
with wisdom and at all times presided shrewdly and imaginatively over his business.

850

for the whole country. The only reason that he helped New York has been
so that New York might be able to help the rest of the country. 2 It was the
panic in New York which caused the trouble in St. Louis and other places.
If relief can come in sufficient measure to New York the trouble will soon be
over elsewhere. He is doing his best to help every part of the country.

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4506 * TO WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON Roosevelt MSS.

Personal Washington, November 19, 1907

My dear Senator Allison: The Secretary of the Treasury notified me in a
letter which for obvious reasons I do not at this time deem it wise to make
public, that there was a strong probability of the Government being unable
to meet its expenses unless we made the issue in question, because it would
be exceedingly difficult to meet them without action which would intensify
the money stringency.

I am giving you the effect of his letter and conversation. The letter itself
is on file and can be produced at any moment when asked for by the Senate
and House, and of course will be shown to you or anyone else of repute who
wishes to see it.

With regard, and looking forward to seeing you soon, I am. Sincerely
yours

4507 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November 19, 1907

To the Secretary of State: Would it not be possible to point out to Japan
that this action about the laborers does not represent in any way anti-Ameri-
can 1 feeling; that their staunchest ally, England, is in precisely the same posi-
tion; that her colomes British Columbia, New Zealand, and the Australian

* During the first part of November numerous southern and western businessmen,
politicians, and journalists were criticizing Cortelyou’s policies. The Secretary of
the Treasury, they protested, by concentrating on the New York money market,
was sacrificing the planter and farmer in order to save the Wall Street “stock gam-
blers.” In answering these charges Cortelyou maintained that he had allocated sizable
sums of Treasury money whenever such assistance was needed. In fact during No-
vember more funds in proportion to the national banking capital of each section were
allocated to the South and West than to the Northeast. Smce large reserves of the
country banks were held in New York, it was, moreover, in the best interests
of these banks to protect their metropolitan reserves Cortelyou stressed the im-
portance of these reserves by indicating that the New York banks provided $219,-
000,000 of the $296,000,000 absorbed throughout the country during the money
stringency.

1 Roosevelt obviously meant to say “anti-Japanese.”

85 *

commonwealths take precisely the same position as our own Pacific Coast
States take; that it is an economic question and that our aim is to settle it in
a way that will prevent friction and the disruption of the friendly relations of
the two peoples? Cannot we put this formally on record 5 2

4508 • TO ANDREW CARNEGIE RoOSCvelt Mss.

Personal Washington, November 19, 1907

My dear Mr. Carnegie: I have your letter of the 18th instant. I shall recom-
mend an increase in the navy. I shall urge it as strongly as I know how. I
believe that every farsighted and patriotic man ought to stand by me. I will
give sufficient reasons in my message. I cannot state all the reasons m my
message, and I certainly will not state them in a letter to you or anyone else
or state them verbally save in strict confidence, but I shall state in my message
reasons which are amply sufficient. You say the question needs my serious
attention. It has had it; and, as I say, I cannot imagine how anyone, in view
of the known conditions of the world and of the absolute refusal of The
Hague conference to limit armaments, can fail to back me up. Sincerely yours

4509 • TO GEORGE BRUCE CORTELYOU Roosevelt MsS.

Washington, November 19, 1907

My dear Mr. Secretary: I have been informed that certain officeholders in
your Department are proposing to go to the National Convention as delegates
in favor of renominating me for the Presidency, or are proposing to pro-
cure my endorsement for such renomination by State conventions. This must
not be. I wish you to inform such officers as you may find it advisable 01-
necessary to inform in order to carry out the spirit of this instruction, that
such advocacy of my renomination, or acceptance of an election as delegate
for that purpose, will be regarded as a serious violation of official propriety
and will be dealt with accordingly. 1 Sincerely yours

8 Root had abandoned all efforts to conclude a formal treaty with Japan on the im-
migration question. Through Ambassador O’Brien in Tokyo, however, he was
endeavoring to complete tne arrangements for an informal solution of that issue.
The Japanese government had already been informed that the next Congress might
well pass further restrictive legislation On November 22, following Roosevelt’s sug-
gestion, Root told O’Brien to explain that the American desire for effective regula-
tion “was ‘purely an economic question’ of labor competition.” O’Brien’s objective
was to persuade the Japanese to reduce by devices of their own choosing the emi-
gration of laborers to the United States This was in large part effected, sec Jessup,
Root, II, 27-30.

‘Roosevelt sent identical letters to Secictarics Garfield and Meyer.

852

4510 • TO CHARLEMAGNE TOWER Roosevelt MSS .

Personal Washington, November 19, 1907

My dear Tower: Your letter impresses me very much, as do similar letters
coming from the Naval Attaches to Secretary Metcalf. 1 1 have shown your
letter to Root. I can hardly believe that Japan is intending to strike us, but
I am taking and have taken every step to be ready. The fleet is in good con-
dition; Evans is a good man; it starts for the Pacific inside of a month. The
wisdom indeed, I may say the absolute need — of its going there has
been amply demonstrated. I should hardly suppose that the Japanese would
hit us while the fleet was there, but of course I cannot be sure.

Will you personally thank our German friends for their kind expressions,
and tell the Emperor for me that Captain Gleaves has reported to me the
assistance rendered to him in every way by the German officers? I regret
to have to add that he has reported that this was m strong contrast to the
attitude of the English officials, who, so far from helping him, tended to
throw obstacles in his way. All of our military experts who have been in
Germany in the last two or three years speak in the same terms as does
Gleaves, and I should like the Kaiser to know that I personally appreciate
this. Tell him also that I entirely agree with his position in the Chinese matter,
and continue unalterably in favor of the maintenance of the Chinese Empire 2
and the system of the open door, the equal treatment for all nations. It hardly
seems to me, at the moment, that anything is to be gained by an open state-
ment to this effect. Sincerely yours

4511 ■ TO RALPH DELAHAYE PAINE Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, November 19, 1907

Dear Paine: The subject of football has been too sore for me to discuss with
Harvard and Yale members of the Cabinet, but Garfield, who is a Williams
man, nearly produced a rift in our hitherto excellent relations by suggesting
to me today that in the finals Harvard would do well to substitute Vassar for
Yale. 1 I behaved with what dignity I could under such distressing circum-
stances!

I will send your letter to Beekman Winthrop. We will do what we can
for Jordan. I liked your writing for him. Faithfully yours

1 Tower had reported that a high German official considered American-Japanese
relations “exceedingly critical” and believed that the Americans did not “snfficiendy
realize” this This official thought that Japan wanted Hawaii and would go to war
before the Panama Canal was completed; see Bailey, Roosevelt and the Japanese -

American Crises , pp 259-260. . _ ,

2 Western observers in the Orient at this time viewed with suspicion Japans inten-
tions in Korea and Manchuria.

1 Even then.

853

4512 ' TO GEORGE BRUCE CORTELYOU

Roosevelt Mss.
Washington, November 20, 1907

Secretary Cortelyou: “Where New York banks have Government deposits,
they should honor the checks from individuals in the West who wish to use
them in paying internal revenue taxes to the Government, so as to avoid a
still further drain of the currency from the West.”

How about this 51

4513 • TO WILLIAM EMLEN ROOSEVELT ROOSevelt MSS.

Washington, November 23, 1907

Dear Emlen: It may be that my message is in Wall Street. This is simply
unavoidable if the big news associations choose to break faith and be corrupt.
It is impossible to get the message circulated except by giving it sufficiently
in advance to the press associations to have it carried by mail. The only
copies that have been given to the press associations so far are those for the
foreign service. This will be my last message where I shall have very much to
say, and it will be out of the question for me to limit it purely to the mo-
mentary business needs of the country. I am speaking to the whole people,
and I am speaking as to policies which I believe should be permanent.

I shall send the letter you enclose to Cortelyou, but I could not help
smiling over your warning against depositing in the West and South. I wish
you could see the bitter protests that come from the West and South, and
from the best men there, too, as to the discrimination in favor of New York.
I had an interesting talk with Morgan and Baker 1 last night. I found them
both in favor of the financial measures I was advocating. Ever yoms

4514 • TO HAMLIN GARLAND RoOSOVelt MSS.

Washington, November 23, 1907

Dear Garland: Thank you for your letter. When hard times come it is
inevitable that the President under whom they come should be blamed. There
are foolish people who supported me because we had heavy crops; and there
are foolish people who now oppose me because extravagant speculations,
complicated here and there with dishonesty, have produced the inevitable
reaction. It is just the kind of incident upon which one must count. It may
produce a temporary setback for my policies in either one of two ways; that
is m securing the election as my successor of a reactionary or of some good
man who will be the tool of reactionaries; or else thru having the pendulum

1 George Fisher Baker, Morgan’s closest financial ally, president of the First National
Bank of New York, director in more than eighty corporations

854

swing with violence the other way, so that my successor as a wild radical
will bring utter discredit on the reforms by attempting to do too much, and
especially by doing a number of things that ought not to be done, thereby
ensuring a real reaction. But I am perfectly certain that m the end the Nation
will have to come to my policies, or substantially to my policies, simply be-
cause the Republic cannot endure unless its governmental actions are founded
on these policies, for they represent nothing whatever but aggressive honesty
and fair treatment for all — not make-believe fair treatment, but genuine fair
treatment. I do not think that my policies had anything to do with producing
the conditions which brought on the panic; but I do think that very possibly
the assaults and exposures which I made, and which were more or less success-
fully imitated in the several States, have brought on the panic a year or two
sooner than would otherwise have been the case. The panic would have been
infinitely worse, however, had it been deferred.

As for the New York financiers, their hangers-on, the innocent men
whom they have deceived or who follow them and the newspapers that
they own or inspire, why I have to expect that these people will attack me.
Their hostility toward me is fundamental. I neither respect nor admire the
huge monied men to whom money is the be-all and the end-all of existence;
to whom the acquisition of untold millions is the supreme goal of life, and
who are too often utterly indifferent as to how these millions are obtained.
I thoroly believe that the first duty of every man is to earn his own living, to
pull his own weight, to support his own wife and family; but after this has
been done, and he is able to keep his family according to his station and
according to the tastes that have become a necessity to him, then I despise
him if he does not treat other things as of more importance in his scheme of
life than mere money getting; if he does not care for art, or literature, or
science, or statecraft, or warcraft, or philanthropy — in short, for some form
of service to his fellows, for some form of the kind of life which is alone
worth living.

With regards to Mrs. Garland, Sincerely yours

4515 * TO WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE Roosevelt MSS .

Private and personal Washington, November 26, 1907

My dear White: I care a great deal more for such a letter as you have written
to me than I do for the attacks that are being made upon me.

You interest me in what you say of Judge Brewer. I have grown thoroly
to suspect him. He is one of the corporation judges whose presence on the
bench has been a source of grave discredit and weakness to it. It is to be
expected as a matter of course that the corporation judge, the corporation
senator and ex-senator, the big corporation attorney, the newspaper owned

855

in or controlled from Wall Street, will attack me. 1 1 should be very foolish
if I expected anything else, I should be still more foolish if I were greatly
disturbed over the attacks. If there is much depression, if we meet hard times,
then a great number of honest and well-meaning people will gradually come
to believe in the truth of these attacks, and I shall probably end my term of
service as President under a more or less dark cloud of obloquy. If so, I
shall be sorry, of course; but I shall neither regret what I have done nor
alter my line of conduct in the least degree; nor yet be unduly cast down.
As far as I am personally concerned, I am well ahead of the game, whatever
happens. I have had an exceedingly good time, I have been exceedingly well
treated by the American people; and I have enjoyed the respect of those
for whose respect I care most. If for the moment I have to go under a cloud,
why it is all in the game. I am as sure as man can be of anything that I have
been following the course which the best interests of this country demand;
and under such circumstances, if I had known that the obloquy were to be
permanent I should still not have altered this course. But I do not believe that
it will be permanent, because I do not believe that there can be a permanent
deviation from the lines of policy along which I have worked — that is, if
the Republic is to endure at all. If there is such permanent deviation I shall
esteem the calamity so great that any thought of my own reputation in the
matter will be entirely swallowed up.

That the Harriman and Rockefeller interests and those closely allied
with them have been willing to see a panic and desirous of precipitating it,
with the purpose of discrediting my administration, I am quite prepared to
believe. But the situation had become such that a panic was bound to occur.
There had been extravagance and speculation in this country which, com-
bined with the general situation throughout the world, would have brought
about a reaction within a limited space of time anyhow; and when this was
complicated with striking instances of dishonesty in high places it became
impossible long to defer the crisis. All the effect that my action has had has
been, by exposing, or inaugurating the policy of exposing, this dishonesty,
to bring on the crisis a year or eighteen months sooner than it would other-
wise have come; and if there had been delay, the disaster when it did come
would have been very great indeed — far greater than it is now.

Indeed I am greatly puzzled by the very condition you set forth. It is, as
you say, exceedingly hard “to do business with a bushwhacker who relies on
your own sense of honor to furnish him the means of beating you.” I am
satisfied that Brewer and Spooner were taking part in what was practically

1 In an address to the City Forum of New York on November 20, Justice David J
Brewer contrasted Roosevelt unfavorably with Charles E. Hughes. Suggesting that
Roosevelt was impulsive and despotic, Brewer remarked that it would have been
better had the Constitution provided for a single, seven-year term for the President.
“If that were the provision,” he declared, “we should not now have the spectacle
of a strenuous President playing a game of hide and seek with the American people.”

856

a ^ r ^ aria ^ e< ^ P ro £ ram ; 2 ^he Sun, Harper* s Weekly, the Times, the Herald,
the Evening Tost, and in fact the subsidized press generally, are taking a line
that makes my position one of very great difficulty. I rounded up the office-
holders all right the other day at any rate, and gave them to understand
definitely that I would tolerate no third-term movement on their part.

Can t you get on here not long hence and let me see you and talk over
various matters? Always yours

P.S. I need not say that this letter is private and personal. Profound tho
my contempt for Brewer is, I should not want to make any public expression
about him at this time, indeed I don’t care much what he says; he needs no
notice.

Why haven’t you answered either of my letters enclosing the letter of
the French Ambassador about your book*

4516 • TO JOSEPH bucklin bishop Roosevelt Mss .

Washington, November 27, 1907

Dear Bishop: Thank you for your very interesting letter. The Congressional
committee have come back delighted. 1 I shall do just as you suggest about
getting Goethals first and you second as interpreters of the situation to
Congress. I shall also favor the proposed change m the law or regulations, and
shall make the change in the regulations if Goethals suggests it.

As for Rogers, I could not take action against him unless you gave me the
name of the man to whom he had spoken as alleged. 2 Under the proposed
regulations I should think that Goethals could handle the matter himself.

“Speaking to the New York Chamber of Commerce on November 21, former Sena-
tor Spooner attacked Roosevelt, blaming him for the panic “I think the people of
the United States,” Spooner said, “ought to think a long time before they allow
the commerce of the United States to be put m a strait jacket, to be tightened or
loosened as some one at Washmgton may think best. . . . The war on corporations
is unreasonable, in many instances hateful. . Corporations are as essential to the
commerce of this day, and always will be, as money.” Spooner’s comments, like those
of Brewer of the previous day, were typical of the prevailing attitude in financial
circles and among Old Guard Republicans toward the President.

1 The House Committee on Appropriations had visited Panama during November
to hold hearings on the appropriations for the canal for the fiscal year 1909. Al-
though the committee members reported that conditions on the Isthmus were in
“excellent shape,” they had, while m Panama, accused Goethals of permitting care-
less and wasteful expenditures and of overpaying his employees. They implied that
they would recommend a reduction in appropriations. Goethals and ex-Senator
Blackburn, head of the canal’s department of civil affairs, came to Washington m
January, where they helped persuade Congress to appropriate the necessary funds

While Goethals was in Washington, Roosevelt signed the executive order that
completed the centralization of administrative command by granting the chairman
of the commission full power to appoint and remove commissioners and department
heads and to specify and assign their duties.

2 Richard R. Rogers shortly left his position as general counsel for the canal com-
mission.

857

Your letters are of great service to me. I write in haste, for as you may
easily imagine I have many things on my hands just at present.

With warm regards to Colonel Goethals, believe me, Faithfully yours

4517 • to elihu root Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, November 27, 1907

To the Secretary of State: Referring to Ambassador O’Brien’s cable of the
27th, how would it do to tell O’Brien to point out to the Japs that com-
plaints do not come to us about limiting the Japanese immigration to Hawaii
but to the mainland of the United States; that it is the latter that is the vital
point 5 The limitation of immigrants to Hawaii does not meet the point at
issue; if not limited as regards the mainland, then, whether Canada is or is
not satisfied, then there will certainly be restrictive legislation by us.

4518 • to henry white Roosevelt Mss,

Personal Washington, November 27, 1907

My dear White: Many thanks for your interesting letter and the enclosed
clipping. I quite agree with you that foreigners as well as ourselves always
mistake the evanescent for the permanent, and always forget that they made
the very same mistake the last time the same conditions were present. They
will get over the effects of this panic in time both at home and abroad, just as
they have got over the effects of previous panics; and during the continu-
ance of the panic there will be the same fear, and distrust, and folly, and bitter
denunciation of the man most prominent at the moment in public life, that we
saw in previous panics. Our fiscal system is not good from the purely fiscal
side. I am inclined to think that from this side, a central bank would be a very
good thing. Certainly I believe that at least a central bank, with branch banks,
in each of the States (I mean national banks, of course) would be good; but
I doubt whether our people would support either scheme at present; and
there is this grave objection, at least to the first, that the inevitable popular
distrust of big financial men might result very dangerously if it were concen-
trated upon the officials of one huge bank. Sooner or later there would be in
that bank some insolent man whose head would be turned by his own power
and ability, who would fail to realize other types of ability and the limitations
upon his power, and would by his actions awaken the slumbering popular
distrust and cause a storm in which he would be as helpless as a child, and
which would overwhelm not only him but other men and other things of far
more importance. (There! that sentence is as long and involved as if I were
a populist Senator; but I hope it conveys my idea.) One difficulty is that on
this continent we are as naturally insular, or parochial, as ever the English
were in the old days when compared with the rest of Europe. The same feel-
ing that made England believe that it did not have to take part in any Euro-

858

pean concert of any kind makes this country feel that it can be a law for
itself in many different matters. As yet our people do not fully realize the
modern interdependence in financial and business relations. I believe that
there will be an awakening, but it will be gradual.

Of course as yet it is impossible to say how long this depression will last,
or how severe it will be. Naturally and inevitably I shall be held accountable
for it, at first by those who wish to hold me accountable for everything, and
gradually by honest men who suffer and who cannot be expected while suffer-
ing to keep their sanity of judgment. The business community of New York
(by which I mean the New York plutocracy and those who are in the pay of
or are led by the plutocracy) is a rather preposterous body when judged by
anything but its own peculiar, and not always healthy, work. In private
conversation these businessmen will themselves tell you how much they
suffer from the scoundrelism of the Harrimans and Rockefellers and Morses
and Heinzes and Barneys, the insurance crowd, and the rest of those who
represent simply a sublimated type of sand-the-sugar deacon in a country
store; but the minute that any action is taken to get rid of the rascality, they
fall into a perfect panic and say that business conditions must not be
jeopardized, and they are blind to the fact that sooner or later the rascality
must be found out and that then honest men will suffer for the deeds of the
rascals.

, In my message I think I have brought out pretty clearly the fundamental
soundness of our position.

That must have been a very interesting experience in England. Poor
Chamberlain! I suppose his work as a public leader is over. 1 What an extraor-
dinary public career he has had! I suppose he cannot help feeling a sense
of incompleteness in the fact that he has never been Prime Minister, altho
the ablest man in English politics, with the exception of Gladstone, since the
death of Beaconsfield.

With warm regards to Mrs. White, believe me, Faithfully yours

4519 ’ TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, November 30, 1907

Dear Kermit: Archie has come back and we are rather concerned about his
health. He looks very frail, is thin, and has no appetite, and altho very lively
has deep black hollows under his eyes. He is delighted with Groton and
deeply appreciative of what you have done for him; indeed, I do not see how
any fellow could have been a better elder brother than you have shown
yourself to be toward the little fellow. Admiral Evans has wanted to take
him around the world with him on his battleship, and perhaps such a voyage
might do his health good; but I am not perfectly certain, and in any event I

1 Joseph Chamberlain, ill since July 1906, was clearly never going to recover suffi-
ciently to return to public life.

859

hate to have him lose this year at Groton. It is very puzzling to know just
what to do. Archie, of course, doesn’t know of the Admiral’s proposal. 1

pn Thanksgiving day we went down in company with the Rixeys and
Cooleys to visit President Madison’s house. The du Ponts now have it. They
have restored it so that it looks much as it formerly did, altho the wings are
larger, and the furniture different and according to my view not in keeping
with the house. It was a very pleasant day.

Wednesday nice Mr. Jack Greenway spent with us and I took the day off,
practically, and went for a three-hours’ ride in the morning with him and
Fitzhugh Lee. He had never jumped before and was anxious to try it. So we
took a dozen or fifteen jumps. I was on Roswell and he on Audrey. At one
jump where Audrey did something a little unexpected he went flying off, but
he was not hurt at all. Tomorrow I am going to have a good ride with Sen-
ator Lodge. I have started Fitz Lee to see if he cannot find a nice little mare,
as much like Molly as possible, that we can give to Mother for a Christmas
present, because I think Audrey a little too much for her, at least when the
weather is fresh and cold.

Ted blew in this morning, exceedingly happy, despite the fact that his
right knee and left ankle are still pretty bad because of injuries received on
the football field, while his hands are all cut up from a feat he and Johnny
Cutler performed last Sunday when, while skylarking together, they fell down
an elevator shaft going down three stories. Fortunately they caught the cable,
thereby saving their necks at the cost of nothing more than some skin off the
insides of their hands. Quentin today remarked apropos of a statement by
Archie that it was not well to have boys go too young to Groton, that he did
not think it would make much difference in his case because he was naturally
of a “bubbling-over nature”! Yesterday mother very much disapproved of
my views of Quentin because I thought he was fat and inert and ate too
much and ought to be made to be more active, and finally she consoled herself
by confiding in a whisper to Alice and Ethel that I reminded her of the father
guinea pig that wanted to eat his little ones! She was perfectly delighted with
the comparison and laughed and lookt as pretty as possible over the vivid
likeness between myself and the depraved father guinea pig in question.
Your loving father

4520 • TO WILLIAM SLOAN SIMPSON Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 2, 1907

Dear Sloan: I have seen Senator Culberson, who spoke very highly of you
and said he had no objection to your nomination. The Senator feels, however,
as I do, that the post office at Dallas is one of the great business offices of the
country; that it needs a very marked degree of business ability to run it, and
that either you or any other man, no matter how honest and upright, who
fails to show such business ability will run a grave risk of jeopardizing his

1 Nor did Archie make the cruise with the fleet.

860

own reputation as well as the public welfare. 1 I want you to come up here
and see me so that I may go over the situation with you. You cannot afford
to pay heed to even the most intimate political friends in running this office.
You need to concern yourself so far as possible with men of real business
ability. I know you have the capacity, and I think this will be the best possible
training for you for an aftertime business career, if you start in to manage it
just as a businessman would manage his own private affairs; but I am certain
you will find it absolutely necessary to manage it precisely along those lines.
Faithfully yours °

452 1 * TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT Roosevelt MSS .

Washington, December 2, 1907

To the Secretary of War: I desire due notice given to all officers concerned
that hereafter suitable physical tests to determine their fitness for active
operations will annually be made of all field officers of the Army, under
such regulations as you may prescribe. 1 A sufficient number of the practice
marches of cavalry, occurring in the fall of each year, might be taken ad-
vantage of to test the ability of all field officers, except those of seacoast ar-
tillery, to make a daily march of not less than thirty miles, for three days in
succession, under conditions suitable to the making of forced marches in ac-
tive field operations. Tests suitable to the character of service required of
them should also be prescribed for field officers of seacoast artillery.

Annual reports should also be required, under such conditions as will in-
sure accuracy and thoroness, upon every junior officer of the Army, setting
forth whether physically qualified for active operations.

Except when excused by higher authority, all officers should accompany
their commands on the monthly practice marches, and reports should be
required, naming in every case any who are unable or fail to do so or fall out
on the march.

Appropriate action should be taken in the cases of all officers found not
qualified physically for active service.

It is just as much the duty of all officers of the Army to adopt such
measures and pursue such habits as will maintain a physical condition fit for
active service as to cultivate their minds in fitting themselves for the
intellectual duties of their profession.

I should also like as much encouragement given to the cultivation of

1 Without damage either to his own reputation or the public welfare, Simpson, a
Harvard-educated Rough Rider, served as postmaster at Dallas from 1907 to 1912.

^Before subjecting its officers to such tests the Army ordered them to take an
examination to determine whether they were physically strong enough to undergo
the ordeal. Of the field officers on duty in the United States and Alaska eight
colonels, four lieutenant colonels, and seven majors were found physically unfit to
take the tests At that time the total number of field officers on active duty at home
and abroad m these ranks included sixty-six colonels, seventy-three lieutenant colo-
nels, and two hundred and eleven majors

8<5 I

horsemanship in the Army as may be practicable under the law, and likewise
to have as many facilities for riding horseback as possible afforded to infantry
captains on Government horses, until they have been made mounted officers
as in foreign armies.

45 2 2 • TO HENRY CLAY FRICK Roosevelt Mss.

Washington, December 3, 1907

My dear Mr. Frick: Your letter of the 30th ultimo was duly received. I should
always be glad to see you and Judge Gary on any matter, but it seems to me
that the only wise course in the case of this suit, before the Department of
Justice, is to have the communication come from the counsel of the Standard
Oil Company to the counsel of the Government. 1 It is the course I follow
with all such suits. While, as I say, I should be glad to see you and Judge Gary,
the only possible outcome of any talk with me would be that I should ask you
to have the Standard Oil Company, thru its counsel, formulate any proposals
and put them before Mr. Kellogg, who would then go over them with the
Attorney General, and afterwards, if it was necessary, they would be brought
before me. I hope you understand the reasons which actuate me in writing
thus, I think if you will go over the matter with Judge Gary you will see
that it would be inadvisable for me, from the standpoint of the Government,
to take any other course; and I think Knox would tell you so if you would
consult him.

With regard, believe me, Sincerely yours

4523 • TO REGIS HENRI POST RoOSCVelt MSS.

Washington, December 4, 1907

Sir: I have received and carefully considered your letter of November 2 2d,
together with the various publications and statements affecting the case, 1
including those submitted thru or by Mr. Sweet; the letter from Mr. Larri-
naga, the Porto Rican Delegate; and telegrams and letters from men of high
standing in the island, including Bishop Jones and the Rev. Mr. McLean.

After careful investigation I am convinced that you state the circumstances
with accuracy. By your own statement it appears that you have committed a
grave error, for which you should be, and hereby are, reprimanded. I am con-
vinced that no one is more keenly aware of and more sincerely regrets this
error than you do I find that during your five years’ term of service in the
island as Auditor, Secretary of State, and Governor, you have been an able,
upright and efficient public official. The letters of the Delegate, Mr. Larri-

1 Frick, after consulting with Kellogg and Senator Knox, had written Roosevelt sug-
gesting that the Standard Oil case might be settled out of court. He stated that he
and Gary as confidential mediators could arrange a solution which should be satis-
factory to both the government and the oil company. This proposal is described 111
George Harvey, Henry Clay Fnck, the Man (New York, 1928), pp. 306-309.

1 See No. 4481.

862

naga, and of Mr. Diego, the Speaker of the Porto Rican House, bear out the
information I have received from other sources, to the effect that the people
of Porto Rico regard you as their friend and champion. The letters of Bishop
Jones, Dr McLean and of various others, show that you have been of especial
service to the churches. After careful consideration I have decided that this
single error in conduct on your part, deeply regretted as it is by you, should
not offset your five years’ record of excellent service, and I shall accordingly
send in your nomination to the Senate. Very truly yours

4524 • TO ROBERT SHAW OLIVER Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 6 , 1907

To Acting Secretary of War Oliver: Referring to the accompanying formal
request of Governor Sparks, of Nevada, for federal troops to restore order
at Goldfield, please direct General Funston to send a sufficient number of
troops to be wholly adequate to meet any emergency. It is far better to avoid
conflict by sending too many troops than by sending too few to run the
risk of inviting bloodshed. 1

4525 • TO MORGAN O. LLEWELLYN Roosevelt MSS.

Washington, December 7, 1907

Sir: I enclose you herewith a communication from Solicitor General Hoyt. 1
While it appears that your conduct was distinctly less blameworthy than that

1 At Goldfield, Nevada, the local branch of the Western Federation of Miners, led
by Henry McKennon, the brother-in-law of Haywood, had gone on strike. The
precipitating cause was the decision by the operators to pay the miners in scrip
instead of cash. This decision was impelled by the currency shortage produced by
the panic. The larger grievance of the miners was the continuing refusal of the
operators to recognize the Western Federation. Once the strike began, the operators,
by reducing wages, employing strikebreakers and black-listing federation members,
intensified the truculent suspicion of their employees. It was feared that in this at-
mosphere of distrust and tension violence would break out.

When Governor John Sparks requested federal troops to put down an insurrec-
tion that seemed to him imminent, Roosevelt sent the troops. He also, on December
11, ordered Lawrence O Murray, Herbert K. Smith and Charles P. Neill to investi-
gate the Goldfield situation These three reported that there was little danger of
violence, that the governor had taken no steps to protect property, and that, in the
absence of a state guard, he had not convened the legislature to obtain adequate
local police protection Unhappily, therefore, the presence of federal troops simply
strengthened the intransigent operators and enabled the state authorities to shirk
their obligations.

Roosevelt, by threatening to withdraw the troops, forced the governor first to
convene the legislature and then to hasten the organization of a state police. Yet the
dilatory inadequacy of the Nevada government, at times apparently intentional, de-
layed until March the withdrawal of the troops. At no time in their three months
in Goldfield were they called upon to interfere actively to preserve peace

For the official documents on the Goldfield episode, see House Document , 60
Cong, 1 sess., no. 607, for a good secondary account, see Rich, The Presidents and
Civil Disorder , pp. 12 5-1 35, see also Roosevelt’s letters to Sparks in the period De-
cember 1907-March 1908.

1 Roosevelt had sent Hoyt to New Mexico to report on the progress of the land

863

of Governor Hagerman and Secretary Raynolds, it nevertheless also appears
that you were not as careful and vigilant in regard to following the jaw as
you should have been. It appears that you were a young and inexperienced
man at the time, that you meant no wrong and did not profit by the transac-
tions, but that you did commit an offense similar to, altho not the same as,
Messrs. Hagerman and Raynolds in officially participating in transactions
which were intended to result, or actually resulted, in the illegal transfer of
territorial lands. I therefore hereby request your resignation. V cry truly yours

4526 • TO WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT ROOSCVelt MSS,

Washington, December 12, 1907

Dear Will: This will be handed to you by Williams, 1 than whom you have no
stauncher friend. I hope you will say nothing for publication until you see
me. Things have become somewhat intricate and you want to consider well
what steps you are to take before taking them. A great many of your ardent
supporters became convinced that your canvass was being hurt by the refusal
of many people to accept my declination as final, and that numbers of people
who were sincerely attached to you, but who were even more devoted to 111c,
did not come out for you because they thought I was still a possibility. Nelson,
of the Kansas City Star, is one of the absolutely honest and very influential
men who held this view with vehemence, and who felt that my position was
misunderstood, and that it damaged you to have any doubt as to whether my
refusal was really final. I therefore decided to make one more public state-
ment, quoting what I said the night after election, and adding that the deci-
sion was final and would not be changed. 2 1 have much to tell you and talk
over with you.

Give my love to Mrs. Taft. Faithfully yours

fraud investigations. His communications to Washington described the role played
in these frauds by Morgan O. Llewellyn, the territorial land surveyor, and former
Governor Hagerman, and former Secretary Raynolds. They also verified Gurry’s
earlier complaints concerning the Justice Department agents, Mcllarg and Gordon,
whose activities were antagonizing New Mexicans of every political persuasion.

On receiving this information, Roosevelt called Curry, Hoyt, Mcllarg, Leahy,
and William H. H Llewellyn, who had recently replaced Fall as District Attorney
for New Mexico, to Washington. The President, whose primary interest was in end-
ing party strife in this Territory, then arranged a compromise by which the Justice
Department dropped all but three or four of its indictments and W H. H. Llewellyn
and his son Morgan resigned from their territorial offices; see Numbers 4394, 440?

1 William Williams, commissioner of immigration at Ellis Island.

a This statement, released to the press on December 12, effectively ended the con-
tinuing talk of a third term. It thereby also, m the opinion of politicians and the
press, strengthened Taft’s position Never again seriously challenged for the nomi-
nation, Taft m December won two small but significant victories. Fust, Cortolyou’s
sponsors publicly confessed despair. Later, Roosevelt’s friends cm the New York
County Committee, many of whom had been in favor of a third term, indicated their
new allegiance to Taft by blocking a resolution endorsing Hughes.

864

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